Project Holocron
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Gideon
As I approach the third anniversary of my membership to KMC forums, I look back and realize that this wasn't a total waste of adolescent time. For those who believe that debating hypothetical battles of Star Wars characters is both pointless and nerdy, I disagree. Objectively speaking, I have grown to be a far greater logician and debater than before my time here, and I have grown to enjoy it more. The purpose of these particular forums at KMC isn't so much to debate Star Wars as it is to practice the application of logic.
My methodology for debates has been inspired by Lightsnake, Advent, Faunus, and, most especially, Publius. Publius's methodology is evident throughout his personal website, and he even has an essay on methodology in the Analysis section that is pretty much the debating gospel. It calls upon the suspension of disbelief and trying to embrace an encompassing look at canon. In laymen's terms, he and I both believe that most statements and events in canon are not thrown in arbitrarily and they are pieces to a great puzzle that somehow fit together.
To this end, I'm starting Project Holocron as a means of collecting our finest debaters and analyzing the relative strengths and capabilities of Star Wars characters through canon. This will not be a versus match or flame fest but a place where we can objectively discuss and compare the known characters to place them in some sort of hierarchy. Will it be official? Probably not. But I think that it will be challenging and interesting and hard to argue against.
If you're interested, let me know.
I would strongly suggest to those who are that you read Publius's essay on methodology.
http://www.domuspublica.net/on_methodology.html
Tangible God
Sounds good to me. I've noticed a steady ascent in logic/common sense and civility recently, so a rather defined hierarchy shouldn't be... too hard to create. I'll read that essay letter when I've time to appreciate it.
Gideon
Originally posted by Tangible God
Sounds good to me. I've noticed a steady ascent in logic/common sense and civility recently, so a rather defined hierarchy shouldn't be... too hard to create. I'll read that essay letter when I've time to appreciate it.
Excellent. Everything is proceeding as I have forseen...
Faunus
I'm up for it I guess, although starting Thursday I'm going to be very spotty as far as activity is concerned. But yeah, it sounds like something that we should've come up with years ago.
And Jesus, I joined three years ago?
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
I'm up for it I guess, although starting Thursday I'm going to be very spotty as far as activity is concerned. But yeah, it sounds like something that we should've come up with years ago.
And Jesus, I joined three years ago?
Excellent.
Faunus
That's what she said.
And what exactly does this "project" entail, in your mind?
Elite Hunter
Sounds interesting, I'm in if Master Gideon deems me worthy.
Master Crimzon
Well, if you want me, I'm in. Sounds interesting.
Gideon
Both of you are accepted.
This project will entail an analysis from a variety of characters and how strong they truly are. Is NJO Luke untouchable? Is Sidious a Gary Stu? Is Kota stronger than Yoda? Et cetera. Through source material.
Master Crimzon
Yay! :d
So, are we going to crack the whole thing together, or is everyone individual going to be assigned a certain 'case'? And then post their argument on it?
Gideon
Originally posted by Master Crimzon
Yay! :d
So, are we going to crack the whole thing together, or is everyone individual going to be assigned a certain 'case'? And then post their argument on it?
We'll all work on one as a group. And once we have a fair assessment of their power, we'll begin comparisons.
Elite Hunter
I say it should be more of group thing for each "case" so we can try and eliminate the biasness we all may have to certain characters, which we all in the end do have some.
Master Crimzon
Sounds cool. Can't wait to start.
City Hunter
Interesting and logical debates? I'm in(That is, if you'll accept me).
Retirement from debating has been boring, anyway.
Gideon
Accepted. And, Elite Hunter, it is a group effort.
Gideon
Excellent. So, Project Holocron currently consists of Tangible God, Faunus, Master Crimzon, Elite Hunter, City Hunter, Lightsnake, and myself. A very positive start. The question now becomes: which character would you like to evaluate?
City Hunter
NJO Luke, He seems to be the one most hyped, next to Palpatine, of course, IMHO.
Though we should make a voting system on which character people want to evaluate first. Seems to me to be the most logical course, at the moment.
Gideon
Perhaps we should analyze them in that order, then? I vote for Luke first and Palpatine second.
Elite Hunter
Sure I'll vote for Luke too.
Faunus
I'm more interest in Vader now, but I'm okay with Luke - Palpatine - Vader.
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
I'm more interest in Vader now, but I'm okay with Luke - Palpatine - Vader.
I'll agree with that.
Tangible God
Originally posted by Gideon
I'll agree with that. The top threebies. I want to add Revan after them, then Nihlius. May as well make Sion next.
Gideon
Let's stick with three, for the moment. Five is the majority, though. We'll start with Luke.
I propose, right now, that Skywalker is not a dueling god as of NJO. He was manhandled by Nyax, despite having considerable assistance and is virtually unremarkable throughout the whole thing. His moment of glory in TUF can also be written off as a deus ex machina "avatar-state" that, coincidentally, Jacen Solo also reached in that very same book. He's hardly infallible. I'd say that the likes of RotS Sidious and Yoda could defeat him for most of NJO.
truejedi
Originally posted by Gideon
Let's stick with three, for the moment. Five is the majority, though. We'll start with Luke.
I propose, right now, that Skywalker is not a dueling god as of NJO. He was manhandled by Nyax, despite having considerable assistance and is virtually unremarkable throughout the whole thing. His moment of glory in TUF can also be written off as a deus ex machina "avatar-state" that, coincidentally, Jacen Solo also reached in that very same book. He's hardly infallible. I'd say that the likes of RotS Sidious and Yoda could defeat him for most of NJO.
if its not too late for me to jump in on this (read the beginning, sounds good) I would offer that i agree with you. He's not someone who can't be beaten. He is however, someone who has never ultimately lost, with more known action against a wider variety of foes than any other force user in history.
Fact is, he did defeat DE Sidious, (albeit with the help of leia, but DE leia isn't exactly much of a combatant either) Defeating sidious would probably be his single greatest feat up to NJO, would that be fair and reasonable to say?
Now you have stated that ROTS Sidious and Yoda would be on par or above luke, and offered Nyax as proof. The problem with this is, we have no one to compare nyax too. He could have been more powerful than Sidious. there is no basis of comparison. We can only use the usual written cliches from the authors, and they are written in an attempt to make their characters sound more dangerous. If Nyax was more powerful than DE sidious (since Nyax was strengthed by the force flowing from the ruined jedi temple) then it doesn't hurt the legacy of luke skywalker that he was telekinetically pushed around by him.
Would you be able to offer more evidence of Nyax's place in the hiearchy? or possibly another example of Luke's weakness?
Elite Hunter
I think we should look at how NJO Luke fights the Vong warriors prior to TUF and how much difficulty he had vs them and possibly compare it to other jedi (preferably in the same book or even the same battle ) such as Jacen,Anakin,Kyp,etc. That should help to measure the gap between Luke's dueling skills vs other "powerhouse jedi " of the time.
Another thing that I think we may want to touch on is NJO Luke and the Dovin Basal feat.
Gideon
Skywalker suffers from similar restraints that his father did. Anakin Skywalker, as Advent has reasoned, was not a Force demigod likely because he was restrained by the bureacracy that had taken root in the Jedi Temple. That is to say that he had no means to learn esoteric knowledge and techniques that someone like the Emperor has managed to learn. Luke Skywalker is the Jedi Master in a time where his knowledge isn't restrained but practically nonexistent, due to Palpatine's purge. He has a short period of intense training and knowledge under the reborn Emperor, scraps from Kenobi and Yoda, and the great variety he has learned from his travels. But his depth of knowledge is clearly minimal.
As far as his defeat of the Galactic Emperor is concerned, it was legitimate. As Lightsnake has pointed out, Skywalker was in a state of oneness with the Force and had greater incentive to win. But it is evident that his skill was not superior than the Emperor's. Just that day, you will recall that the Emperor laid him out quite handily in their brief lightsaber duel.
I believe that Skywalker's insecurities are at the heart of the problem. As the Force Unleashed and the Empire Strikes Back has shown us, mental limitations manifest themselves on one's ability to use the Force. His post-DE endeavors left him very sober, very insecure, a changed man. I would say that that would also attribute to his lackluster feats, with few exceptions.
It is evident, however, that Luke Skywalker is no match for top tier combatants by the New Jedi Order. Perhaps by TUF. But not a moment before.
Enyalus
Question: There seems to be a pretty unanimous feeling here that Nihilus' saber skills were 1) sub-par, or 2) average.
Will that be addressed? Is it even possible, given the limited information we know about him? (Hopefully the KOTOR comics will get around to giving us more detail soon.)
Gideon
This is not a thread to arbitrarily through discussions around any random character. We're giving full analysis and discuss on one character at a time. Unless Luke Skywalker's middle name is Nihilus, you're going to have to wait until we get around to discussing him.
By the way, you're still on ignore.
Faunus
Perhaps not in a duel, but his displays of power are extraordinary by any standards. Manipulating multiple miniature black holes, crushing an AT-AT into the ground, deflecting said war machine's blaster fire with nothing but the Force, and detonating entire squads of battle droids with a gesture in a manner reminiscent of Arca Jeth are feats that are apparently being ignored.
And I disagree with Luke's "moment of glory" being a cliche union with the Force moment. For one, he displays very few of the signs that are normally associated with it, both in-universe and in narration.
Galen Marek explodes, Anakin Solo is literally discharging lethal Force energy as he dies, Ganner Rhysode is explicitly stated to be achieving a higher state of being and doing things in combat that are completely beyond what he could normally do, and Jacen Solo turns into a being of pure light, melts the Vong Overlord, and then ages five years. Luke, IMO, was simply cutting loose. He turns around and says something to Jacen without even sounding out of breath, after fighting through six levels of progressively more dangerous Vong warriors, and he does something that "neither of the twins had ever seen him do" in goading the slayers into attacking - those who become "one with the Force" never, to my knowledge, demonstrate a real sense of identity.
The twins note that he's a "maelstrom" in the Force, and that his presence and even physical state are barely detectable, but once they reach the throne room the narration notes that their Force-meld has allowed them to act as one, with each being completely aware of the others and their intentions. Especially once the trio are dueling the slayers - if you read the passage - there's no indication that he's anything but himself, in all his glory.
On a side note, Luke's "emerald lightning" isn't really a projectile attack like Force lightning. There's a "blinding tangle" of "raw energy" in his left hand, and then all of a sudden the target stops as if hitting an "invisible wall," starts convulsing with "green sparks" flying through the body, and then promptly dies.
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
Perhaps not in a duel, but his displays of power are extraordinary by any standards. Manipulating multiple miniature black holes, crushing an AT-AT into the ground, deflecting said war machine's blaster fire with nothing but the Force, and detonating entire squads of battle droids with a gesture in a manner reminiscent of Arca Jeth are feats that are apparently being ignored.
His displays of power are extraordinary, but remarkably inconsistent. There must be a reason for it (other than out-of-universe PIS). Consider that, just shortly before the Yuuzhan Vong invaded the New Republic, Skywalker was nearly killed by a droideka, even when he had the highly skilled ex-Emperor's Hand Mara Jade at his side. This is a far cry from the man that waved his hand and crushed a small army of battle droids, crushing AT-ATs, and manipulated black holes.
Could you provide the narration? I don't have my copy of the Unifying Force on me.
True, but in the case of Marek and Solo, they were going to die either way, but discharged energy as a means of either saving their allies or trying to take their enemies with them. Rhysode I am ignorant of.
"Cutting loose"? How so? And how do you reconcile that with the rest?
I may have to concede that.
Lightsnake
Don't forget him being able to walk on lava, fly entire ships with the force, block force lightning with his bare hands (something only highly powerful Jedi Masters are able to do), cloaks a PLANET from sight AND Force indefinitely, rebuilds and shatters an entire giant castle with the force, defeated Lumiya one on one...
Let's not sell Luke too short.
Gideon
Originally posted by Lightsnake
Don't forget him being able to walk on lava,
That is impressive, but not exactly indicative of someone who is all powerful.
A Star Destroyer, if I remember correctly, and he manipulated the engines.
Where, exactly, does Skywalker do that? And, for the record, General Kota casually performs a similar feat. And though he is a powerful Jedi, I doubt he is on par with what we consider Skywalker to be.
Impressive, but he nearly kills himself trying to perform an illusion in Dark Nest, over a simple ship.
Again, impressive, but hardly untouchable.
And was nearly killed by her the first time. For the record, though Lumiya is a fiercely cunning combatant, she is not extraordinarily powerful.
I don't. But the idea that he is the greatest ever by NJO and without peer is ridiculous.
Lightsnake
Originally posted by Gideon
That is impressive, but not exactly indicative of someone who is all powerful.
Well, he does walk on it and fight a giant lava monster, so it's impressive alright
I was referring to the Milennium Falcon in Courtship of Princess Leia technically
Of course not. But, IIRC, the Ultimate Visual Guide says even the most powerful Jedi masters are hard pressed to perform this feat...and where does Kota do this?
And this is Courtship of Princess Leia Luke...far from NJO
Presumably as he had to literally CREATE the ship in midair...different from the usual manipulating minds in force illusions. He created a fleet at the battle of Fondor to Caedus, for instance. And shortly after The Joiner King, he does the same thing again with no issue. Either he mastered it after one go, or something was wrong with him the first time.
Alone? Hardly. But when you add all of this together...
This is before the second Death Star was even destroyed. The second time, Luke beat her VERY soundly. And Lumiya was an Emperor's Hand and personally groomed by Vader. These aren't titles given out easily
Without peer? No. Head and shoulders above just about anyone else you can think and capable of taking on anyone else? Yes.
Faunus
Originally posted by Gideon
His displays of power are extraordinary, but remarkably inconsistent.I agree entirely.
Your theory of his own insecurities getting in the way makes the most sense, although they shouldn't matter when he's fighting the likes of Darth Sidious, his history with whom is the stuff of nightmares.
Although this is contradicted by his battering at the hands of Nyax... Can you provide details on that fight?
True.
I don't have a copy, period. I just use the online source - I'll be sure to post it later today (tomorrow?).
Solo was accidental - he was wounded and he was dying, not actively trying to kill the Vong with the Force.
Cutting loose, as in not holding back at all. Fighting with everything he himself had, maximum effort, etc.
Clarify, please?
You may indeed.
@Lightsnake: Are all of those feats from NJO or earlier?
Lightsnake
Exception of the illusion stuff, all of it is waaaay before NJO
Gideon
Originally posted by Lightsnake
Well, he does walk on it and fight a giant lava monster, so it's impressive alright
Again, it's not because Luke Skywalker is so uber that his flesh is resistant to unimaginably high temperatures, but because he uses the Force to protect himself from it.
Could you give us a bit more detail on how he does it? Moreover, I will remind you that the Falcon is not a gigantic ship.
In the Force Unleashed novelization, he laughs and deflects Starkiller's lightning with his hand, and then redirects the psuedo-apprentice's telekinesis at him.
Against whom?
Did he summon illusions of these ships for everyone, or was he simply manipulating Caedus. I presume there is a vast difference.
Still, we need a bit more detail.
Still, Lumiya nearly defeated Skywalker. She is an Emperor's Hand because she is a highly dangerous fighter -- consider that Lumiya herself was nearly defeated by Nelani Dinn and Tresani Lobi -- but not a potent Force user.
I'm hesitant to say that. Is he weak? No. Is he average? No. But he's not number two by NJO.
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
I agree entirely.
We must try to find a feasible explanation for it.
Wouldn't it, though? I'd imagine that, to him, Palpatine is a figure of nightmares. He exploited Skywalker's weakness and lured him to the dark side.
Not at the moment.
Sure.
Was he not?
Going to the dark side or basically how Yoda fought against the Emperor?
How would you explain the inconsistencies?
Lightsnake
Originally posted by Gideon
Again, it's not because Luke Skywalker is so uber that his flesh is resistant to unimaginably high temperatures, but because he uses the Force to protect himself from it.
Well, that IS sort of my point.
It's just that he's using it to completely operate the Falcon
Earlier on, he uses the force to survive a point blank explosion in his X-wing's cockpit and gently float down to the ground, too
Oh, TFU...Granted, Kota's pretty effing impressive, though
One of the Nightsisters, who was said to be 'proficient' in FL...can't recall her name, but Luke takes her head off in the fight
We don't really know. If Caedus saw them, we can presume others did, though, as it cost Caedus the battle
Again: This is pre-ROTJ. Then Luke learned how to counter the Lightwship and Lumiya is on her knees with a saber at her throat in moments
I'd say he's a bit higher than that. Three at worst.
Gideon
Very nice. We're off to a great start. I'm gonna head to bed soon, so we'll continue in the morning.
Tangible God
Oh, just to say it first: judging by what truejedi said about TFU, Marek is gonna have to be in that list soon.
truejedi
I can clear up that it was just caedus that saw the fleet, the rest of his fleet thought he was losing his mind.
I wanted to point out in regard to Nyax, that he was boosted WELL beyond his usual powers during that battle because of the well of force energy from the jedi temple,
Also, I would agree that Luke didn't "come into his own" in TUF, but simply let show what he had the ability to do all along. A problem he may have had early on in NJO is that he was fighting Vong, who if you remember posed a problem that the characters of pre-NJO material never faced: the jedi could not feel them in the force. In combat, that made them completely unpredictable, and took away the main advantage that jedi hold in hand to hand combat. We don't know if top tier characters such as mace or yoda could have dealt with Vong as easily as luke was able to, even prior to TUF.
Master Crimzon
Well, I'm far from an expert on the subject of Luke, so I'm going to keep out for this argument. I'll join in the debate when Sidious and/or Vader come into play. The PT is my area of expertise.
Schwarzenegger
I'm up for it, if you guys are ok with it.
Darth Subjekt
This is a quite innovative thread, and an incredible idea. I'd certainly like to be a part of it, even though my main downfall, or restriction (to me at least) is my lack of sources. I simply haven't had the time and money to get all the books and such that some of the younger participants have, what with a full-time job, going back to school and having 2 kids. But should you see fit, I'd love to be a part of it, Gideon.
Gideon
Originally posted by Darth Subjekt
This is a quite innovative thread, and an incredible idea. I'd certainly like to be a part of it, even though my main downfall, or restriction (to me at least) is my lack of sources. I simply haven't had the time and money to get all the books and such that some of the younger participants have, what with a full-time job, going back to school and having 2 kids. But should you see fit, I'd love to be a part of it, Gideon.
Absolutely. Welcome aboard. We have hookers!
Darth Subjekt
You have hookers.... I have money!!! Another reason I don't have money for EU books.
Gideon
Originally posted by Darth Subjekt
You have hookers.... I have money!!! Another reason I don't have money for EU books.
Well, at least it's money well spent.
Darth Subjekt
This is true. Nothing like a toothless crack-head hooker to get the day started. Wait, yours do have teeth, right?
Lt. Valerian
So, what characters are we evaluating today, Gideon? Or shall we continue what was being discussed yesterday?
Gideon
Originally posted by Lt. Valerian
So, what characters are we evaluating today, Gideon? Or shall we continue what was being discussed yesterday?
Nice signature. And we should continue regarding Skywalker.
Elite Hunter
I can post the enitre Nyax fight but it is very long and it is hard to cut parts of the areas with no combat and not understand the jedi's tactics at times.
Gideon
Was Nyax using the Force nexus beneath Coruscant the entire time?
Faunus
Originally posted by Elite Hunter
I can post the enitre Nyax fight but it is very long and it is hard to cut parts of the areas with no combat and not understand the jedi's tactics at times. Do it.
Plz.
And Subjekt, you don't need to buy the books - I only have three. You can use that link I provided to Blax in the Battle Bar.
Elite Hunter
Ok I'll post it but it covers like 3 chapters so, sorry for the potential quadruple + post to come.
Elite Hunter
Luke ignited his lightsaber and sliced into the gap he'd been peering through, widening it.
Lord Nyax watched as his workers swarmed toward the warriors he could not sense. He did not like the fact that he could not feel them, but he did enjoy seeing his workers kill them-though it was usually at a cost of twenty or thirty workers per warrior.
But he was summoning more workers from all around. No matter how well they hid in the ruined undercity, his call reached them and forced many, most, to climb free of their hiding holes, to stumble and then walk and then race toward the scene of this conflict.
And he could feel the wall weakening. Soon it would give way completely. The woman who had told him of this wonderful machine-he thought she was up at its summit, making it move-had been right.
Then he sensed something and looked up. A bar of en-ergy flashed, and three people fell out of a hole in the ceiling.
They drifted laterally to the top of the slope of the black wall, riding it down, using their power to slow their descent, keep their balance, increasing the friction between the clothes on their feet and the wall's surface.
Lord Nyax moved to be beneath them. He ignited his blades, all of them. He knew they'd be here, knew it from the moment they stopped chasing him. He wished they'd go away instead of tiring him.
The foremost of them, the male, slid down until he was not far above Lord Nyax's reach, then leapt free, somersaulting to land somewhere behind him. Lord Nyax reached out as the male came down; he slid a sharp-edged piece of stone toward the male's landing area, timing it so that the stone would shear through the male's legs. But the male slowed his descent and rotation, landing atop the stone instead of in front of it, and bounded off, toward Lord Nyax. Meanwhile, the women leapt clear of the stone, spinning down toward him, igniting their weapons as they came.
Lord Nyax leapt free of the center of their formation, bounding up over the head of the red-haired female. He hit the stone wall feetfirst, shoved off, and rotated to a landing many steps away from the three pests.
Then he made a thought and drove it into their heads.
It hit Luke like a razorbug fired straight through his forehead. Luke staggered under the pain. His back hit the irregular floor. He waved his lightsaber up and in front of him, a defensive form, but there was no follow-up blow for him to counter.
There was, however, a new priority. He was to switch off his lightsaber and then go attack the Yuuzhan Vong. He leapt to his feet and turned his weapon off. He could see Mara and Tahiri doing the same.
But that would mean dying-and, worse, failing.
No, it's what he had to do.
No, he couldn't do that.
He stood, frozen by the dilemma, straining against the thought that filled his mind, the thought that was slowly driving out every other consideration.
So he did what he had to whenever he was confused. He reached out, touching Mara in the Force. He didn't have to open his mind to her; his mind was as open as it could be, held open by Lord Nyax's thought. He just had to reach for her, and she was there, locked in as much confusion and pain as he.
She had no answer for him. He reached for Tahiri and found her to be identically immobile.
He felt Lord Nyax grow impatient, then angry, and Lord Nyax expressed his anger through pain. Luke felt his fingers and toes, hands and feet, shins and forearms explode. He fell, writhing, then stared in amazement as he realized that his limbs were still attached-the pain was real, but no injury had caused it. He could feel Mara's pain, feel Tahiri's.
There was something different about Tahiri's. He looked over to where she lay.
She was rolling to her stomach, forcing her way to her feet. Off-balance, weaving as she stood, she nevertheless managed to pick up her lightsaber and ignite it. She looked at Nyax, anger blazing in her eyes. "I know something about pain you don't," she said. "Pain drowns other people. I just swim in it." She took a step toward her tormenter.
Luke could feel Nyax's anger, his moment of confusion. And though Luke couldn't move, he could act. He reached out through the Force and grabbed the stone that Nyax had tried to use against him moments earlier. He jerked it toward his enemy.
And though he was weakened by pain, by distraction, it flew those few meters and slammed into Nyax's back, driving him forward, slamming him off his feet.
Tahiri leapt forward, bringing her lightsaber down in an all-out attack. Nyax managed to get one of his arm-blades up to intercept it, then kicked out, shoving off against a pile of rubble. He slid away from Tahiri, and the slide continued well past the point that it should, carrying him clear of her... but he left skin and blood behind on rubble he crossed.
Luke felt Nyax's astonishment, his outrage at having been wounded, however trivially. Then Nyax drove another thought into Luke's brain: Kill Tahiri.
This time, Luke was ready for it. He'd had a moment to center his thoughts and, most important, emotions. He was ready with his memories of Tahiri, all the time's he'd been delighted as she'd made another gain in her study of the Force, all the hopes he'd had for her future and happiness. He could hold up like a shield his memory of her love for his nephew Anakin Solo. All those memories blunted Nyax's attack, shattered its speartip.
Luke reached for Mara again and found her similarly armored, but with logic, not emotion. Running through her mind was a cold calculation of allies and opponents, actions and consequences. Uppermost in it was a realization that Nyax could rule any individual, and out of individuals whole galaxies were made.
But deep beneath the analysis was a stream of emotion, an awareness of their son Ben, of what he would be if Nyax could find him and shape him.
Luke came up on shaky legs, felt Mara doing the same. And though Nyax was not letting up on the pain-energy, it affected Luke less now. He could feel Tahiri's part in that, the way she opened herself to the pain, was not daunted by it, was not shut down by it.
They faced Nyax as a single creature. The part of them that was Mara rejected the false truths Nyax tried to impose upon them. The part of them that was Luke rejected the false hatreds, the lying enmities. The part that was Tahiri made the pain part of what they were, a fuel for their strength.
Nyax looked between them, and a flicker of distress, a childlike expression of fear, crossed his features.
Then all four of them felt the wall break. Whatever was beyond it roared forth to sweep them away.
Elsewhere
Above Borleias, on a routine surveillance sweep in her X-wing, Jaina Solo was jolted out of her detachment by a surge in the Force. She could feel Luke and Mara in the surge. She knew they were in danger. And she could see Kyp's X- wing wobble as he, too, was hit by the sensation.
Thousands of light-years away from Borleias, Ganner Rhysode, Jedi Knight, kept a firm hand on the controls of his rickety transport as he closed the last few meters to dock with the space station ahead. But his arms spasmed as the Force seemed to howl at him. His transport jerked forward, hitting the docking bay at a greater velocity than he intended. As he shook his head to clear it, he heard the dockmaster over his comlink: "Idiot."
In an artificial environment dome, part of an evergrowing station hidden away in the Maw, Valin Horn,
Jedi apprentice, jerked awake so violently that he fell from his narrow couch. He sat up, trying to remember what nightmare had caused this reaction, but he couldn't. Then he heard the wailing of the infant Ben Skywalker from two compartments down, the voice of an adult trying to soothe him, the voices of other Jedi trainees as they compared details of what they'd just felt.
Coruscant
Rushing up a flight of emergency stairs, Bhindi ahead of her, Elassar behind, Danni stumbled as the sensation hit her. She crashed down atop the steps, bruising shin and ribs, and lay there gasping.
Elassar knelt beside her. "Don't move. Let me look."
"I'm not hurt." She ignored the Devaronian and heaved herself upright. She knew she had to look as rattled as she felt. "Something happened. Something just...got loose."
Elite Hunter
FIFTEEN
Luke swam out of a sea of-not pain, not shock, but something between exultation and complete confusion. His back was against a mound of rubble, and his wife and the girl were beside him. He couldn't remember their names, or his own.
Red fluid dripped down upon his shoulder. He craned his neck to look up and saw a body on the mound above him, that of a human man. Its right arm was missing and blood poured down the rubble below, one stream of it pooling and then dripping onto Luke.
Luke. That was it, Luke. And Mara and Tahiri. And the Yuuzhan Vong, and Nyax. Luke rose, saw his lightsaber a few meters away, and yanked it to him with a casual display of the Force. It struck his palm with far more energy than he'd intended, and he dropped it again.
Then he saw Nyax, standing beneath the hole in the black wall. The hole, one of the construction droid's wrecking claws still within it, was twenty meters up. Nyax danced on the pile of rubble beneath it. His was the uncoordinated, artless, dance of a child. It was a dance of joy.
Mara rose beside him. Luke had known she was unhurt.
"Force energy," she whispered.
This must have been a wellspring of it, he thought. The old Jedi Temple must have been built above because it was here. They were guarding it. And guarding the planet from it.
Nyax finished dancing. He turned to look at the Jedi. His expression was so full of uncomplicated happiness that it seemed impossible that he would ever try to hurt them.
Nor did he attack them now. He simply raised a hand.
Above him, a portion of the ceiling, a plug some ten meters across, shot straight up and out of sight. Debris rained down, but drifted to one side before it could hit Nyax. Tremendous crashing noises emerged from the hole above, and the walls all around them began to shake.
Tahiri joined Luke and Mara, tucking something away in her backpack. "We're in trouble," she said.
One of the advantages of running around in a lawless, ruined city several kilometers deep, Face reflected, was there was always gear to find.
Such as this airtaxi. It had been perhaps the thirtieth one he'd seen since leaving the Jedi, the fourth undamaged one he'd come across-and the first one to start up with a single press of the controls. Now he roared along the tumbled canyons of Coruscant, following a comm beacon, keeping well below rooftop altitude.
It was a necessary precaution. He saw a lot of coral-skippers. All seemed to be heading toward one location.. the same location he'd recently fled.
He reached the vicinity of the beacon, gained until the signal was its strongest. That put him directly opposite the collapsed corner of a building. He could see something shining silver there-a simple antenna, attached so recently that nothing had had time to grow on it; no dust or soot had darkened it. "Face to Kell," he said. "I see your antenna."
"Drop six stories and drift over to the next building. Come in the first big window," Kell answered. "The access to where I am is in the main chamber there."
"On my way." Face lost altitude and sideslipped. He peered in through the shattered viewport of what had once been a luxury apartment, could see the stairwell reaching from the ceiling. He gunned his thruster and crashed through the framework around the viewport, then cut power. His airtaxi dropped half a meter to the floor.
Seconds later, he squeezed in through the access hatch of the vehicle named Ugly Truth.
Kell was above him in the pilot's seat. He didn't turn around. "Did you feel something a couple of minutes ago?" Kell asked.
"No."
"Good. Me either, then."
Face looked up through the cockpit viewport at the jumble of rubble overhead. "Do you really have enough explosives to blast through that?"
"Approximately... but that's not what we're going to do."
"Ah."
"A detonation like that might damage this frail little flower of an escape ship." Kell pointed down toward his feet. "But the building wall on that side isn't a support feel their confusion, too. Nyax, his objective accomplished, had released them. As their volition returned, their physical exertions, their outrage at the way they had been violated for so long, overwhelmed them. "I have to get up there," Luke said. "Persuade them to drive that thing out of here before the building comes down."
"No, you don't," Mara said.
He looked at her, surprised at such a merciless, unnecessarily cruel statement. But then he sensed her amusement at his mistake.
"Just tell them," she said.
Luke reached up and found minds-dozens of them, all receptive to the Force. In the wash of Force energy emerging from the crack in the wall, he found he could reach any of them, all of them.
He projected a strong demand for silence, a sense of calm, and could feel them quiet. Then he formed a picture in his head: the building collapsing, the construction droid driving in reverse to get away. He projected that image with all the strength he could muster, bolstered by the Force wellspring.
He felt them react-shock... and then belief. In moments he heard the metal tower's engines roar again, and could feel their intention to crash their way back out through the rubble pile behind them.
Luke thumbed his lightsaber into incandescence and marched toward the creature with Irek Ismaren's face. Let's finish this.
But Nyax, ignoring him, lifted straight up into the air and floated up through the hole his Force powers had made. In a moment he was out of sight. wall. Support comes from the building's metal skeleton. So I've planted shaped charges to blow that wall out."
"And then what?"
"And then I hit the topside nose repulsors. We tilt forward, I hit the thrusters, we punch free, and we rotate for a while, everybody screaming and vomiting, until I regain control."
"Kell, sometimes I hate you."
"Yeah, but I'm still the best pilot you ever saw."
"Where are the others?"
"En route. I got a comm message to them."
"How? There are kilometers of rubble between us and them! A comm message couldn't possibly penetrate."
Exasperated, Kell finally did look down at his leader. "Do you remember something about us putting a sensor package up at rooftop, then running a direct cable down so Danni and Baljos could get a constant sensor feed?"
"Oh, that's right."
Elite Hunter
I broadcast to that sensor package-"
"Never mind, never mind, I get you now. I'll set up for the others getting here."
The hole above Nyax's head widened. No more rubble poured down upon him. Instead, sunlight did. First it was a tiny shaft; then it broadened into a blue-white column of brilliance. He bathed in the light, held out both hands to capture it, rubbed it into his cheeks.
Luke could feel Tahiri's sense of shock; it matched his own. "Did he drive a hole all the way to the surface?" she asked.
"I think so," Luke said. He turned his attention to the beings at the summit of the construction droid. He could
Danni, Elassar, and Bhindi scrambled in through the access hatch.
"Take the seats forward," Face ordered. "These rear ones are for the Jedi; we don't want people climbing over each other when they board. Copilot's seat is mine. Where's Baljos?"
"He's staying," Bhindi said. "Instead of me."
Face sighed. Once it became likely that resistance cells would be of little use here, he'd told Bhindi to pack up for a return to Borleias. He hadn't anticipated Baljos being so resistant to having his studies cut short. Baljos's choice here might prove to be a scientific boon someday... or it might be a useless way to commit suicide.
But it was Baljos's choice.
Face dogged the hatch shut, then struggled up the makeshift ladder and into the copilot's seat. He strapped himself in, "Ready when you are."
"Boom," Kell said. He thumbed a hand remote.
The Ugly Truth rocked as the wall beneath its keel blew out into the street beyond.
Kell didn't wait to evaluate the situation, the size of the hole. He shoved his control yoke and the transport lurched forward. Face's stomach rose into his throat as the transport leaned out into the open air above the avenue, then leapt free of the building to plummet nose-down toward the ground.
The construction droid's internal turbolift opened and the Jedi stepped out into the machine's topside control chamber.
The scores of people packed into the chamber didn't notice them. Their attention was riveted on the forward viewports. Beyond them, mounds of rubble were falling away.. - and beyond hovered a cloud of coralskippers.
Even as the construction droid burst out into sunlight, the coralskippers opened fire, pouring plasma bursts into the machine's front face. Shocks from impact points dozens of stories down rocked the control chamber. Diagnostics screens lit up; alarms blared. Tatterdemalion workers who had, minutes ago, been mind-controlled slaves now shrieked, possessed again of enough intelligence to realize that their doom was at hand.
"We've got to get them out," Tahiri said. "The weapons-"
Luke shook his head. "This droid's weapons won't do much against coralskippers. We have to use other weapons."
"What weapons?"
Mara said, "Us."
Luke raised his voice, drawing on the Force to strengthen it. "Everyone out! Down the emergency stairs. Don't take the turbolift; it's evil." He added the mental image of the turbolift snapping open and shut like the mouth of a malevolent carnivore.
The Coruscant survivors continued shrieking, but crushed forward toward the two opposite stairwell exits, leaving the Jedi some room in the middle. The parting of the sea of flesh also gave them a clearer view of the coral-skipper formation and the incoming plasma fire.
"That fountain of Force energy is what made Nyax stronger," Luke said. "It's pure power... and we can use it, too." To demonstrate, he raised a hand like an orchestra conductor... and a mound of rubble against a building a hundred meters ahead rose into the air. Luke clenched his fist and drew it toward him, and the rubble swept toward the construction droid.
The coralskippers to the rear of the formation had no chance. Chunks of duracrete, stone, and ferrocrete plowed into them from behind. Dovin basal singularities snapped into position to swallow some of the improvised missiles, but even that was not enough. Luke's missiles smashed into yorik coral, sweeping coralskippers out of the way.
Eyes wide, Tahiri mimicked Luke's gestures, but with the face of a building to their left, to the right of the coralskippers. Chunks of facing blew forth from the building, hurtling and falling among the coralskippers.
Mara continued to add her voice and her Force presence to the orders Luke had given, spurring the workers to flee more quickly, but most of her attention was on the chamber's controls, its walls and ceiling features. She found what she wanted and reached up to undo a hatch in the ceiling. Bright light spilled in from above and a metal ladder lowered. She went up topside.
Coralskippers rose from the formation in sudden flight, attempting to get away from the stream of crude projectiles, but those who rose first ran into another stream, this one moving much faster; chunks of rock and duracrete pounded into the yorik coral, eroding it like a super-powered sandblaster, destroying those vehicles.
At first Luke thought that Mara had initiated that attack, adding her strength to his and Tahiri's, but he realized after only a moment that it felt wrong. He leapt up through the hatch Mara had opened, landing beside her on the construction droid's roof. Tahiri was only a second behind him.
From here, they had a clearer view of the sky full of coralskippers and of the ziggurat behind them.
From the ziggurat emerged a column of rubble. As it rose, it parted, arcing away from its point of emergence in all directions like a water spray. But this spray was being flung kilometers in every direction, chewing through building tops and coralskippers as it landed.
And above its center, where the rubble no longer rose, floated Nyax. Giant boulders danced in and out through the rubble spray, weaving a lovely spiral through the air.
"Another Jedi academy graduate," Tahiri breathed. "He can lift really big rocks."
"Very funny," Luke said. He gauged the leap from the construction droid's roof to the nearest solid surface on the ziggurat, decided they could make it. "Let's go."
Viqi heard a noise in the distance, a roar as if some dam had finally opened its valves to let countless tons of water through. The floor rumbled under her feet.
She ignored it. She ignored the pain in her wrists, pain caused by her struggles against her bindings; those struggles had gone on until she'd found a jagged piece of metal protruding from a wall, and now she was free again.
She reached the Terson's apartment building and the floor of their chambers. She was trembling with exhaustion and dripping with sweat by the time she stumbled into the living chamber... and then she froze, almost all remaining hope draining from her.
The secret access stairs were down, and, of all things, an airtaxi rested in the middle of the chamber.
She took the stairs up as fast as she could and stared in anguish at the hole in the wall through which the Ugly Truth had left. All her work was undone. She would have to start again, searching, hiding, surviving, until she could find or repair another functional spacecraft.
Well, it was likely that the airtaxi was functional. That was a starting point. She descended to give it a look.
On the front seat was a pile of preserved food from the Ugly Truth, and a note:
Elite Hunter
Senator Shesh:
We thought you would probably need these more than we do. Don't eat them all in one place.
Love,
The Wraiths
Only then did Viqi sink down to the carpet. Only then did she begin to cry.
The ziggurat was a series of high, broad steps. The Jedi leapt up to the next step, ran its width, and then leapt up to the one above, again and again, until they reached the roof.
From here they could see the hole in the ziggurat root widening. With every moment that passed, more tons of rubble poured up and out of the hole and flew out to pour onto surrounding kilometers of buildings. Some streams diverted to hose coralskippers out of the air. The lines of giant boulders still danced their merry circles around Nyax.
Luke led the others off at an angle, to where each of the boulders in turn dipped down to within meters of the zig-gurat's surface. As the next one swept low, they leaped, propelling themselves farther with use of the Force, and landed atop the irregular duracrete surface.
Luke could feel it as Nyax detected them. The pale giant rotated in the air to face them, his smile changing from one of simple pleasure to one of malice. "This is going to be bad," Luke said.
Mara nodded. The wind at this altitude whipped her hair into a life of its own, making it look like a candle flame in a strong breeze. "Any ideas?"
"I have one." Tahiti knelt to improve her balance while she stared ahead. In the distance, this stream of boulders took a sharp turn, then moved to within a few meters of Nyax's position and beyond. "Just past that point. Distract him. I'll finish him."
Luke cocked an eyebrow at her. "You'll finish him. How?"
There was something in Tahiri's eyes that sent a chill down Luke's spine. "He could fight the Jedi just by feeling us in the Force," she said. "He couldn't feel the Yuuzhan Vong, so he had to watch. Well, I'm both." She rose and turned away from Luke and Mara, then took the long leap to the next flying boulder back in line. She raced its length, then leaped again to the third boulder down.
"What do you say we take her at her word?" Mara said.
"I'm too tired to argue."
Their boulder reached the end of its straightaway course and turned. It turned more violently than its predecessors had, but Luke and Mara could feel Nyax's intentions in the Force; they kept their feet planted and did not budge.
As their vehicle came closer to Nyax, Luke stretched forth his hand. He snatched a portion of the rubble stream from beneath them, bent its course, sent it hurtling toward Nyax.
Nyax reacted without moving, regaining control of the stream, hurling it at Luke.
Luke leaned over backward, rotating his boulder with him. The oncoming stones crashed into its side and bottom as the rotation continued.
Upside down, clinging by virtue of her enhanced Force strength, Mara ignited her lightsaber and hurled it. It twirled under the flow of boulders, almost invisible through the dense rain of duracrete; then, as it came within meters of Nyax, it twirled up and at him.
His expression changed to one of startlement. With none of his own blades active to protect him, he slipped sideways, out of the lightsaber's path, then turned to watch it as Mara directed its flight. She sent it around in a long loop, preparing it for another approach.
Mara and Luke came upright as their boulder completed its rotation, and Luke could feel Nyax's attention on him, too, waiting for his attack. Luke made it, shoving in the Force, trying to hurl Nyax off balance and onto Mara's blade. The attack was a success, but Nyax activated all his blades as he was shoved, and with contemptuous ease he swatted Mara's lightsaber away.
Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him, through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water. He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to convey him to another, and crack that one, too.
And he was tired of these creatures. They were weaker than he, but so stubborn. Even inventive.
Nyax raised his hands. He would crack the stone they rode on and send it and them hurtling down into the ruins.
Something slammed into his back, just below the point where his internal armor plate protected him. His eyes snapped wide. He had not felt it coming. He used his power to overcome the pain.
A second thing struck him. He felt bones in his lower hack shatter. Numbness flowed across his legs. He exerted greater control over himself, desperately trying to force sensation into those limbs, as he turned.
His third antagonist, the smaller female with the yellow hair, rode another boulder, lying upon it and gripping it with one hand. She looked at him with alien merciless-less in her eyes. She barely registered in his special senses - she must have closed herself off to the power, reducing his ability to detect her, his ability to anticipate her moves.
Something was wrong. He had the pain under control. He was full of the power. He should be able to make anything happen, anytime.
He did not understand, for he had not been trained in the ways and use of the Force, that the catastrophic failure of the body's functions could interfere with use of the Force. All he did understand was that his control over the boulders, over the debris flow from the ever-widening hole beneath him, was faltering.
The yellow-haired female held up a third missile. It had legs that writhed as she held it.
Nyax gaped at her. It was one of the alien creatures, one of the types flung by the warriors he could not feel. Her type was not supposed to use this. Only the flat-nosed aliens were.
It was unfair. She had cheated.
Before she could throw it, Nyax lost control. He fell, screaming, into the pit he had created.
All at once, the boulders came crashing down onto,. and often through, the ziggurat roof. Luke and Mara leapt free, using their augmented power to soften their landing, and rolled up to their feet, looking among the rain of multi-ton missiles for a head of blond hair.
"There," Mara said, and sprinted. The distance of a ballplaying field away, Tahiri lay atop a small dome. But as Luke watched, as a boulder arced down toward her, the young Jedi leapt free. The boulder crashed through the dome and was gone.
"Face to Mara, Face to Mara, do you read me?" Luke skidded to a halt and pulled out his comlink as his wife reached and embraced the younger Jedi. "Mara's a little busy right now, Face." He leapt to one side and a mass of ferrocrete the size of a Y-wing smashed into the roof beside him. "For that matter, so am I. What is it?"
"Tell me that the whole mess with the fountain of rock was you."
"It was."
"We're inbound. So are a couple of Vong capital ships. You want a lift?"
"We do."
"We'll be there in two."
The three Jedi leapt from the ziggurat roof edge to the stubby wing of the Ugly Truth. They squeezed in through the open hatch. Before they were buckled into their restraint couches, Kell had heeled over in a stomach-churning dive into the avenue below. Luke had a glimpse of the construction droid, thought they were going to plow right into it, and then they were level again and accelerating along the avenue.
"So," Face said, his tone conversational. "Is property damage on a massive scale normal for Jedi?"
"That's just if you're friends with them," Kell said. "Wait until you're married to one."
"We need to go back," Luke said. "Nyax isn't dead."
Face and Kell exchanged a glance. "Are we saving him or killing him?"
Luke sighed. "Just getting in his way."
Kell shook his head and gained altitude. As soon as he reached rooftop level, he looped around again, back toward the ziggurat.
Nyax lay in pain at the bottom of the pit.
He'd never known what pain was before he met those three with the power. Now there was nothing but pain.
He would find them, and he would kill them. He must do so soon because he could feel his strength ebbing. No matter how much strength he drew from what lay behind the black wall, he could feel himself failing. Soon he would sleep.
He extended himself, finding the minds of every living thing his power could detect. Where a mind was strong and complex enough to hear him, to obey, he looked through that creature's eyes.
In the first few moments, he could see only a blur of superimposed images. Then he learned to subtract some, overlap others, remap the image into a coherent one in three dimensions.
The power-wielders who had hurt him were not visible. But two chunks of coral he could not feel with his own power, big ones, were approaching him from two different directions.
His enemies had to be aboard them, hidden by whatever power they possessed to block his senses. Since they never gave up, they must be coming back after him. They had to be aboard because he would not sleep until they were dead.
He roared out his pain and sent ton after ton of rubble into the sky.
Kell lost altitude and slid to a landing on a rooftop four kilometers from the ziggurat. From here, they could see the two Vong mataloks, cruiser analogs, approaching from north and south.
Two sprays of rubble leapt from the hole in the ziggurat, each going after one of the mataloks. Nyax's aim was getting worse; in the first few seconds of the attack, neither Vong ship took a hit.
And both fired, raining plasma projectiles as numerous as raindrops into the ziggurat.
Luke jerked as he felt his flesh burn. He looked at his arm, but no blackness appeared there, no seared flesh. It was Nyax, his pain being transmitted to all close enough to feel it, and he could see that pain reflected in the faces of Mara, Tahiri, Danni, even Kell.
Elite Hunter
Then the rubble streams hit the mataloks. They poured across the vessels, some small portions of them being swallowed by voids, the majority eating away at the yorik coral as though it were sugar. The mataloks sideslipped, desperately trying to avoid the streams of destruction, but the rubble blasts tracked them, followed them, wore them down.
A constriction in Luke's chest, one he had been unaware of until now, suddenly loosened, vanished. "He's dead."
"Lord Nyax?" Face frowned back at him. "I don't think so. Look, more rubble than ever is flying out of there."
"Luke is right," Mara said. Her voice had a distant quality as she tried to interpret what she felt through the Force. "Nyax is gone. But he's imbued his surroundings with some of his hatred. Some of his last intent."
The mataloks rose above the rubble-stream, launching a new volley of plasma before the blasts tracked them, tore into them again. In the distance, more Yuuzhan Vong capital ships raced toward the disturbance.
"It's going to continue," Luke said, "as long as some Part of him is there. As long as some part of him can exert his will on his surroundings, and that wellspring of the Force allows it to happen. But he's gone." He took a deep breath. "Let's go home."
"Not quite yet," Kell said. "You hear this?" He dialed up the comm board, and suddenly everyone could hear a noise-sniffing. No, sniffling. Weeping. "This is from an open comlink Face left behind for stragglers. Back where the Ugly Truth was. So someone's there."
"And I bet I know who," Face said...............
Dam that was long, sorry mods
Gideon
So... er... was he just a beast or were his powers enhanced?
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Gideon
So... er... was he just a beast or were his powers enhanced?
I think he was strong before hand but his powers were indeed enhanced to a ridiculous level.
Faunus
"That fountain of Force energy is what made Nyax stronger," Luke said. "It's pure power...
Pretty conclusive, really. And that's all I could get from that passage. It made so little sense.
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Faunus
"That fountain of Force energy is what made Nyax stronger," Luke said. "It's pure power...
Pretty conclusive, really. And that's all I could get from that passage. It made so little sense.
Indeed, One of my favorites paragraphs from those chapters was this
Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him, through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water. He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to convey him to another, and crack that one, too.
Darth Subjekt
Originally posted by Faunus
Do it.
Plz.
And Subjekt, you don't need to buy the books - I only have three. You can use that link I provided to Blax in the Battle Bar. I haven't looked in there yet, but what is it? Just a place you can read a lot of the books or something?
Lt. Valerian
There is a Russian SW site were you can download almost all of the novels. I'm not sure if that's what Faunus provided, though.
Elite Hunter
http://sweu.ru/novels.htm
Darth Subjekt
Thanks. Do you need WinRAR?
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Darth Subjekt
Thanks. Do you need WinRAR?
It usually takes them about 3 months to upload the newest book and the only book on the list that doesn't work is POD.
xxxpoppunker182
i'd like to get it on this unless anyone has a problem with it.
and i don't know too much about the njo series but y stop at just discerning where njo luke stands in terms of force power and lightsaber combat? Granted i think after you set where njo luke is i think you should go on and do lotf luke since that is the most powerful luke we've seen.
Faunus
LotF Luke is acknowledged as the #1 warrior in the mythos. NJO Luke is, according to Gideon, not even close. We're trying to clarify that issue, and decide just how good he really is. So far, it's looking like he's closer to that top mark than some had surmised.
Faunus
Also, Gideon, here's the entire passage detailing Luke's battle.
It wasn't until the eighth level that Luke and his niece and nephew met with resistance, but it was clear from the ferocity with which the warriors attacked-from above, below, and through the various access corridors-that the onslaught was likely to continue all the way to Shimrra's lair, and probably inside it, as well. If the warriors constituted the first line of defense, it was difficult to imagine what might await them at the summit, assuming they could even make it that far. In most places the stairway wasn't wide enough for the two people to stand abreast, and in those stretches Luke had to face the brunt of the attacks.
He was his own vortex, deflecting amphistaff strikes, whiplike lashes, and spurts of deadly venom; dodging or redirecting flights of thud bugs; parrying the thrusts of coufees, to sidestep, duck, maneuver his body in ways that seemed to defy gravity. Stunned or burned by Luke's green blade, thud bugs were ricocheting from the walls and high ceiling, chipping away at the yorik coral surface.
Dropped in their tracks, warriors sprawled with hands pressed to stumps of legs and opened foreheads, or with black blood welling where the lightsaber had found defenseless areas between living armor and tattooed flesh. Jacen recalled watching his uncle on Belkadan, where the war had begun, wielding two lightsabers when he had come to Jacen's rescue.
But the rescue on Belkadan paled in comparison to the control Luke demonstrated now. His single blade might as well have been ten, or twenty. He took the steps at a lightning pace, burning his way through dilating membranes but in complete control of his momentum. Seen through the Force he was a maelstrom of luminous energy, a Force storm against which there was no shelter. And yet all his energy poured from a calm center; an eye.
He made no missteps. None of his actions were interrupted by thought. In fact, Luke didn't seem to be there at all-physically or as an individual personality. Jacen and Jaina were astounded-but they had little time to reflect. Their lightsabers were busy, as well, turning the blows Luke dodged, or defending assaults launched from below. On the fourteenth level, where the Citadel's exterior wings sprouted from the hull, they reached a fork in the stairway. Luke swung to Jacen.
"Which way?" He wasn't even breathing heavily.
Jacen extended his Vongsense.
"The left passage leads to living quarters on the next level. The other, to some sort of dovin basal lift that accesses the summit." He screwed his eyes shut. "Shimrra is there. He has guards with him-"
"Not enough."
"-and another."
Faunus
"Shimrra's expecting us," he said. Jaina tightened her ringed grip on the pommel of her lightsaber.
"We should at least announce ourselves," Luke said.
He aimed the tip of his lightsaber at the membrane. Jacen and Jaina brought their lightsabers close to his, and the three of them pushed the glowing blades through. A rancid smell permeated the antechamber, and the thick membrane began to melt. Finally the lock retracted with an audible pop! Luke gestured for Jaina and Jacen to withdraw to either side of the opening, and not a second later a shower of thud bugs whizzed out into the antechamber, caroming off the walls, ceiling, and floor. The three Jedi raised their blades, deflecting some of the winged creatures back through the portal, stunning others, and killing the few that remained. While Jaina was dispatching the last of them, Luke whirled and leapt through the opening. Landing in a crouch five meters from the membrane, he held the lightsaber in a one-handed grip extended to his right and slightly behind him.
Jacen was the next through, assuming a bent-legged forward stance, with his blade held straight out in front of him. Then Jaina came through, moving swiftly but vigilantly to Luke's left side, with her blade raised over her right shoulder. Though the floor was level, the walls of Shimrra's circular, high-ceilinged lair were curved. A simple throne occupied the center of a raised dais that was encircled by a shallow moat flowing with what might have been diluted Yuuzhan Vong blood.
The far wall contained a much more elaborate entry portal, and to the right of the throne a stairway climbed into the summit of the Citadel, presumably to the command and control areas of the escape vessel itself. Between the moat and the Jedi stood fifteen warriors of modest stature, arrayed in a semicircle and armed with hissing amphistaffs.
They affected no armor, but their burnished and blood-smeared flesh looked as impenetrable as vonduun crab topshells. Luke recognized them from Han and Leia's description as examples of the specially engineered warriors they had faced on Caluula, and against whom even Kyp had failed. The slayers presented a daunting obstacle, but they were surpassed by the one they were deployed to protect.
When Luke had been brought before the Emperor, Palpatine's visage had been familiar to him from images that had reached even remote Tatooine, and his inherent power was immediately evident.
The Supreme Overlord, however, was a void Luke could not fathom. He wasn't a shell of a human in a hooded cloak, more energy than flesh. Nor was his face that of a Sith Master, prematurely wizened by years of calling on dark power.
Instead, Shimrra was very much alive and all the more intimidating for it. In him was concentrated the combined strength of the Yuuzhan Vong species, and if he couldn't be defeated, then all that Luke had done to reach this point would amount to nothing. He was the largest Yuuzhan Vong Luke had ever seen, with lean limbs, a massive head, and an upper body so thoroughly branded and tattooed it was impossible to distinguish flesh from garment.
Widely placed, his slightly slanted eyes gleamed in shifting colors. He wore a ceremonial cape made of tanned hide. Curled sedately around his left forearm was a thick-bodied amphistaff with an intricately patterned head. Only in his bemusement was Shimrra similar to the enemy Luke had confronted at Endor, on the incomplete Death Star.
Much as the Emperor had trusted in the power of the dark side of the Force, the Supreme Overlord trusted entirely in the power of the gods. And similar to that pivotal moment in the Galactic Civil War, a battle was raging in the skies.
But Shimrra's lair permitted no view of the contest; only the muffled sounds of distant explosions infiltrated the sealed space. If Luke was at all worried about Jaina and Jacen, if he had any regrets about having brought them to the very heart of the war, he kept his concerns so deeply to himself that they could not be felt by his charges, even through the Force. The strength of their meld was such that the three might have been sharing the same mind, and that mind was the Force itself.
Luke had no doubt that what they were doing was necessary, and in harmony with the will of the Force. Shimrra's warriors were no less committed to the moment. A threat to all the Yuuzhan Vong held sacred, the Jedi were driven by a dark and incomprehensible power that flew in opposition to the divine edicts of Yun-Yuuzhan and the other gods. No more than did those of the Jedi, the marked faces of the slayers displayed neither anger nor fear-only the full measure of their intent to protect their god-king at all costs.
"The Master and the twins," Shimrra murmured from the throne, in passable Basic. "How long we have anticipated this meeting."
"As we have," Luke answered.
Shimrra beckoned with the fingers of his left hand.
"Then come forward and show your respect, Master Jeedai."
Faunus
Luke stayed put-and yet something began to move him forward. Just short of the moat, and much to the amusement of the slayers, he dropped to his knees, and bent at the waist. His extended left arm shook as it fought to prevent him from pressing his face to the floor, and the lightsaber was nearly yanked from his grip.
It's not Shimrra, Jacen said through the Force.
A dovin basal, Luke guessed. He sensed Jacen abandon the meld momentarily, presumably to call on his Vongsense to disable the gravitic powers of the biot. Luke began to feel as if he were shedding weight by the second. Gradually, he raised his face to Shimrra, then-and as if defying gravity-he drew himself erect with a proud air.
Incredulity almost raised Shimrra out of his throne. For a split second his glowing eyes fell on Jacen, who by then had returned to the Force-meld. Jaina and Jacen sidestepped away from Luke to create three separate fronts. Then Luke did something neither twin had ever seen him do. Shifting his stance, he called the lightsaber into his left hand. Abandoning form, he encouraged the warriors to attack him. In swift response the fifteen divided themselves into three groups of four, four, and seven.
The quartets began to square off with Luke and Jacen, while the larger group formed up opposite Jaina. Seeing that Luke and Jacen were the stronger fighters, the slayers had decided to reserve most of their might for the Jedi they perceived as being the weakest, guessing that Luke and Jacen would always go to Jaina's aid before attempting to reach Shimrra.
No one moved.
Just when it seemed that the moment would be forever frozen in time, the slayers charged, some with amphistaffs stiffened, others unfurling them like whips, and still others prompting their weapons to spit venom. There were no attempts to engage Luke, Jacen, or Jaina in single combat for personal glory, as had happened on Yag'Dhul and other worlds.
The war had gone on too long. All that mattered now was that the conflict be decided, and that there be winners and losers. Luke's lightsaber was a blur of pure energy as he parried a four-pronged attack.
His blade found exposed flesh time and again, but the slayers sustained each searing blow without surrendering ground. The amphistaffs hammered at the lightsaber with such force that flashes of blinding radiance filled the room, projecting giant silhouettes up along the curved walls. In an attempt to forge a united front, and despite battling warriors on three sides,
Luke and Jaina began to move toward one another. For a moment, several slayers found themselves trapped between the two Jedi and the lashing movements of their comrades' amphistaffs. Pierced simultaneously from either side, one warrior dropped to the floor; then a second. Luke vaulted through a half-twisting front flip that landed him back to back with Jaina, killing a third warrior on the way down, with a strike to the top of the head. With some effort, Luke saw Jacen through the Force, pressed hard by the four slayers who had dedicated themselves to him.
Again Luke leapt, swinging his blade through the air and cleaving the neck of the most formidable of the slayers attacking his nephew. Two slender amphistaffs shot for Luke's legs, but he managed to jump over both, as if skipping rope, then decapitated the slower amphistaff before it could withdraw. A coufee swooshed through the air millimeters from his right ear. Crouching, he extended one foot and pivoted on the other, knocking feet out from under the knife wielder, then amputating the warriors left foot with a return swing of the lightsaber.
Seeing an opening, Luke made a move for Shimrra-only to be dragged down by the dovin basal. Immediately, he rolled to one side, toppling two slayers and removing himself from the gravity field. Jacen leapt to Jaina's side of the bunker, and the two of them began working in concert to drive a trio of warriors back toward the moat that encircled Shimrra's throne.
One of the slayers nearly stumbled into the flow, but caught himself in time. Surging after him, Jacen swung his blade through a backhanded crosscut, which the warrior parried, then answered with a fast chop aimed at Jacen's left knee. Jacen jumped straight up, but not quickly enough, and the amphistaff struck him on the ankle. Landing off balance, he staggered into the wall. Two warriors hurried after him, but made it only halfway when the entire bunker tipped to the right.
The unexpected movement sent everyone, slayers and Jedi alike, scurrying, sailing, and tumbling into the opposite wall. As if mounted on gimbals, the bunker tipped again, this time in the direction of the ruined osmotic membrane, bunching everyone against that wall. Guessing that Shimrra was responsible, Luke spared a glance at the throne.
The Supreme Overlord's clawed hands were indeed in motion, but the expression on Shimrra's face was one of benign bafflement. The dhuryam, Jacen sent through the Force. Luke understood.
The World Brain, joining the Shamed Ones in revolt, was causing the entire Citadel to shake, perhaps by rocking the cradle to which it was wed, or by some means beyond Luke's imagining. Self-contained, the bunker was attempting to keep itself level. But cut off from the dhuryam, it couldn't anticipate the Citadel's behavior.
Shimrra's hand movements were just that-the idle flutters of a god-king who was forced to accept that he had lost his most powerful ally and weapon. Without the dhuryam's cooperation, Coruscant could never be Yuuzhan'tar. Even if victorious in the war, the Yuuzhan Vong would have failed to re-create their ancestral homeworld.
And yet there was a look in Shimrra's blazing eyes that promised Luke he had not seen the last of the Supreme Overlord's tricks. Shimrra was concealing something-a secret of such power that it enabled him to remain seated on his throne, even with his world teetering around him. Luke noticed then, for the first time, that Shimrra wasn't alone on the dais.
Behind the throne crouched another Yuuzhan Vong, whose asymmetrically swollen head and downcast features identified him as a Shamed One. Aware that he had been glimpsed, the Shamed One withdrew into the shadow cast by the throne, as if in an attempt to make himself small and unnoticeable. But Luke had no time to think further about Shimrra's companion.
Faunus
Only the Force was keeping Jacen from succumbing to the pain-the Force and what he had learned from Vergere during the indeterminate amount of time she had kept him in the Embrace of Pain-breaking him. While under his mentor's tutelage he had been able to go into himself to meet the pain on its own terms. Now he didn't have that curious luxury, because he was having to call on all his abilities to keep from being killed. If not for the swaying of the Citadel and the effects of its unpredictable oscillations of Shimrra's coffer-his escape vessel-Jacen figured he would already be dead.
That was the World Brain, having finally decided which side it was on. The trouble was, that decision mattered only to the reshaping of Coruscant and not to the Supreme Overlord, who was clearly able to control objects in his immediate environment without need of the dhuryam. The slayers, for one thing.
Where initially they had been moving with individual vigilance and of their own accord, they were now moving as coralskippers did under the control of a battle coordinator. The change had come simultaneously with Shimrra's rising from the throne, and the escape of his Shamed One companion, whom Jaina had pursued into the summit of the Citadel.
Jacen knew that her exit had been prompted by something she had perceived through the Force, but he and Luke could have used her lightsaber now. Three slayers had Jacen backed to the bunker's outer wall. Even through his Vongsense he could not predict their actions, or where their thrashing and thrusting amphistaffs were going to strike next. He had managed to evade copious sprays of venom, but his torso had taken countless lashings; his limbs were bruised by the heads and coils of the serpentine weapons-though none had yet been successful in sinking fangs into him.
His lightsaber had returned as many blows, but the slayers seemed to be largely immune to pain, if not indestructible. A half dozen corpses were sprawled on the floor, sliding or rolling with each random cant of the Citadel. But more than the lightsaber, it was acrobatics that was keeping Jacen from being overwhelmed by the specially engineered warriors. Time and again last-moment leaps had carried him out of the range of their shapeshifting weapons, as the fight moved along the perimeter of the throne room.
The gravity-tweaking dovin basal set in the base of the throne made it impossible for Jacen or his opponents to venture closer to the throne than the shallow moat that encircled it without being tugged violently to the yorik coral floor. Jacen took advantage of the gravitic anomaly now, as one of the slayers lunged for him. He leapt high into the air, and the warrior flew under his feet, only to be pulled to the floor facefirst, so that by the time Jacen had twisted in the air and landed he was able to drive his blade into the small of the warrior's back, almost pinioning him to the floor.
The other two immediately rushed him from behind. Unleashing his amphistaff, one warrior managed to wind the weapon around Jacen's legs, while the other swung his amphistaff at Jacen's head. Ducking the swing, Jacen leapt again, taking the attenuated amphistaff with him. Yanked from the warrior's grasp, the weapon unwound and dropped before it could strike.
Across the room Shimrra was moving stiffly toward Luke, who was being set upon by four warriors. The enormous Vong overlord stepped across the moat as if crossing a final line. Seemingly entranced-in sway of the Yuuzhan Vong gods-he fixed his glowing eye implants on his prey. He held the thick-bodied amphistaff diagonally in front of him, with his giant left hand closed around the middle of the weapon's three-meter-long body.
Jacen sent a warning to his uncle through the Force, which Luke acknowledged-not only through the Force but also by spinning away from the warriors to provide himself with enough fighting room to confront Shimrra. Whirling through a cartwheel, Luke caught one of the warriors on the chin with the heels of his boots, unbalancing him enough so that Luke could get inside the arm that held the amphistaff and drive his lightsaber through the warrior's neck. As he quickly withdrew the blade, a second warrior was ready to pounce; Luke stretched out his left hand and impaled the slayer through the right eye.
At once the other two converged on him, battering him with their amphistaffs and coufees, opening ragged wounds in his upper arms and chest. Abruptly, the Citadel rocked and the room tilted to the right. Luke dropped to one knee, holding his lightsaber arm up to protect his head, then dived, somersaulting on landing and spinning to his feet to face the warriors' charge. His green blade moved up from the floor in a diagonal motion, cutting off the weapon arm of one of the warriors, then on the downswing grated across the abdomen of the second, leaving a sizzling burn in the slayer's hardened flesh. Wincing, the warrior tried to take hold of the energy blade itself and fell forward on his knees. Luke pierced him through the chest, then pivoted on one foot to take on the others.
One of the warriors stalking Jacen abandoned him to engage Luke. Jacen moved against the others, the shorter of whom feigned a strike at Jacen's right leg, then twirled the amphistaff in his hands and slammed the tail end of it into Jacen's right cheek. Reeling from the blow, he staggered within range of the dovin basal, which dragged him to the floor on his back.
The short warrior hurried in, his weapon striking at Jacen like a serpent, then stiffening, jabbed him hard in the left forearm, as if to stake the arm to the floor. Jacen twisted out from under the attack, grasping that Luke had again been pressed to the wall. Having killed three of his assailants, he was facing only one opponent, but his energy was beginning to flag. It was not fatigue born of fear of going to the dark side, but simple exhaustion, and Shimrra was moving in. Eager to award the kill to the Supreme Overlord, the slayer closest to Luke turned and ran at Jacen with his amphistaff held overhead like an ax, intent on splitting open his victim's forehead.
Jacen could feel Luke call deeply on the reservoir that was the Force. From Luke's left hand gathered a blinding tangle of energy manipulated into being by the raw power of the Force. As if hitting an invisible wall, the warrior stopped short, then spasmed as green sparks began to coruscate around him. Enveloped, he fell like a tree. Still twisting and writhing away from the snapping amphistaff, Jacen used his Vongsense to dampen the effect of the dovin basal, allowing him to move out of its gravitic field and get to his feet. His short opponent howled in outrage and whipped the amphistaff.
Jacen allowed it to coil around his body; then, as the warrior was reeling the weapon in, Jacen hurled his lightsaber deep into the slayer's armpit. The bunker inclined, sending Jacen directly toward Shimrra. Without thinking-and without his lightsaber-he lunged for the neck of the towering Yuuzhan Vong. But Shimrra perceived Jacen's intent, and threw his mighty right arm behind him. Jacen was hit squarely in the center of the chest. Dropping to the floor, he blacked out.
When he came to an instant later, he saw that Luke had obviously intercepted Shimrra's follow-up blow. But now, monstrous in aspect and power, Shimrra hovered over Luke like a rancor. Luke's lightsaber thrummed through the air, but Shimrra refused to be kept at bay. Luke tried to Force-leap out of reach, but the Supreme Overlord had him caged.
The master of defense is one who is never in the place that is attacked, Jacen recalled Vergere saying. Shimrra appeared to have learned the same lesson. Lunging, the thick, three-meter-long amphistaff wound itself around Luke's torso, pinning his right arm and lightsaber hilt to his side, the green blade aimed at the floor. Just in time, Luke managed to get his left hand gripped on the snake's uppermost coils and the head as it loosed volumes of venom at him. But Luke was rapidly being squeezed to death by the amphistaff.
Feeling his uncle's suffocation in his own crushed chest, Jacen summoned his strength and crawled frantically for his lightsaber. Calling it to his right hand, he sent it hurtling through the air at Shimrra's head. The Supreme Overlord raised his left hand in a parry; then, with Jacen's lightsaber spinning off toward the throne, he reached into the folds of his hide cape-and extracted a lightsaber!
With a flourish, he activated it. A violet blade shot forth with the familiar snap-hiss. Jacen recognized it immediately. Anakin's lightsaber.
Faunus
"Weapon of the Solo we killed at Myrkr," Shimrra said, his eyes shifting through colors as the energy shaft thrummed: "Conveyed to Yuuzhan'tar by the traitor Vergere, wielded by the Jeedai Ganner against so many of my warriors, retrieved when he died and brought to me, and now yours to confront. So that you may know what my warriors experience at Zonama Sekot, forced to fight against other living vessels."
Jacen was too stunned to respond; too disheartened to move. Shimrra waved the blade close to Luke's head. Luke removed his left hand from the amphistaff's throat to grab Shimrra's right wrist. The serpentine weapon immediately stiffened and plunged itself into the left side of Luke's chest.
Luke screamed in pain.
The Supreme Overlord reared back to gloat: "One thrust and the deed is done!"
Then all at once, Anakin's lightsaber flew from Shimrra's grip into Luke's left hand. Through his Vongsense, Jacen could feel Shimrra's astonishment and dismay. In a motion almost too swift for Jacen's eyes to follow, Luke slit the throat of Shimrra's amphistaff.
As its coils began to relax, he sliced his own lightsaber blade upward, cutting the amphistaff's body into segments. As a horrified Shimrra leaned forward, as if to vise his huge hands around Luke's neck, Luke crossed the blades and shoved them upward toward Shimrra's neck.
The blades burned clean through. Shimrra's decapitated head dropped to the floor with a loud thud! and his body crumbled. Luke hauled himself out from under the Supreme Overlord's body and collapsed against the wall.
"Jaina," he said weakly. Swinging his left hand, he sent Anakin's lightsaber in a high arc across the room. Jacen scrambled to his feet and had just started for the lightsaber when the floor dropped to the right and he stumbled. Jacen regained his balance and leapt for the lightsaber, but it flew past him and rolled beyond his reach.
The vision! Jacen thought. He looked at his uncle for confirmation.
"Leave it," Luke said.
Lips compressed in determination, Jacen raised himself from the floor and raced for the stairway that curved up into the Citadel's towerlike summit.
That's everything on it.
sweersa
You posted six times in a row!
lol ftw
truejedi
Originally posted by Elite Hunter
Indeed, One of my favorites paragraphs from those chapters was this
Power flowed through Nyax, such power as no being alive had ever felt. He could reach down into this world, reach through the false crust beneath him, through the natural stone crust beneath that, all the way to where stone turned to sluggish fluid and through to where superheated metals ran like river water. He could crack this world in two, could force the meaningless worker-things to convey him to another, and crack that one, too.
i highlighted and copied that quote while i was reading, because i was going to use it to say that luke being outclassed by such a version of nyax was hardly a detriment to luke's power. (had the exact words higlighted, from beginning of the paragraph to the end, lol)
I, reading this passage hardly get the impression that nyax dominated luke, anybody else feel like that? It felt more like strike, counterstrike, but it was nyax that kept getting frustrated and having to change tactics. It just took luke and the others a few seconds to adjust to the next form of attack.
Gideon
A very impressive state. Still, though, given descriptions of how (according to Lightsnake) Palpatine's duel with Skywalker sent shockwaves throughout the Eclipse that resulted in the death of Imperial personnel, I still don't believe Luke is quite at that particular level of "ownage" that most of us attribute, though I will readily admit he's a lot better than what I thought.
Still, for most of NJO, up until TUF, he's not anything approaching a god.
Schwarzenegger
Well in regards to the duel on the eclipse, when leia entered the emperor's vessel, the omniscient narrator made a statement that the dark side energies swirling in the massive vessel are stronger than ever, which indicates that palpatine has grown tremendously in the force since the last time he was seen.
That means that palpatine was emitting a dark side aura that swirled through a massive 17 km ship.
Gideon
Can someone link me to those comics?
Schwarzenegger
I have the comic and quote, it goes : There is no glimmer of hope in this ship... only the dark side of the force..more powerful than ever.
Palpatine was the source for the dark side energies in the massive vessel.
Palpatine is also referred to as a dark nexus(don't know if thats special or not) With the power of luminous beings, Brother and Sister jedi press the force around the dark nexus that is Emperor Palpatine....
Another quote which states that palpatine destroyed the fabrics of space : With mounting anguish, Luke and leia watched the emperor's rage take form, as a great storm of raw energy rends the fabric of space itself
Gideon
Originally posted by Schwarzenegger
I have the comic and quote, it goes : There is no glimmer or hope in this ship... only the dark side of the force..more powerful than ever.
Palpatine was the source for the dark side energies in the massive vessel.
Palpatine is also referred to as a dark nexus(don't know if thats special or not) With the power of luminous beings, Brother and Sister jedi press the force around the dark nexus that is Emperor Palpatine....
Another quote which states that palpatine destroyed the fabrics of space : With mounting anguish, Luke and leia watched the emperor's rage take form, as a great storm of raw energy rends the fabric of space itself
Sah-weet. We'll bring those in once we transfer discussion to His Imperial Majesty.
Faunus
Originally posted by Gideon
Still, for most of NJO, up until TUF, he's not anything approaching a god.He never displays the power he's capable of wielding up until that point - I highly doubt that in the span of one book he goes from merely extraordinary to one of the greatest of all time.
Master Crimzon
Blame the idiotic NJO authors.
By the way, how would you people gauge his force abilities in comparison to his saber skills?
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
He never displays the power he's capable of wielding up until that point - I highly doubt that in the span of one book he goes from merely extraordinary to one of the greatest of all time.
And the purpose of this thread is to find a reason why. And if that means Luke can summon his true capabilities on a whim. He certainly didn't against Lumiya.
Faunus
As of LotF, while there're probably people who can compete with him on some level in a duel, I don't think anyone really compares in terms of sheer power. He keeps Jacen - more powerful than Darth Vader, so nearly as powerful as Darth Sidious - in stasis without even looking at him, without even a gesture, while he's talking to Ben. Minimal effort.
He's basically unstoppable when he's not holding back.
truejedi
Originally posted by Faunus
As of LotF, while there're probably people who can compete with him on some level in a duel, I don't think anyone really compares in terms of sheer power. He keeps Jacen - more powerful than Darth Vader, so nearly as powerful as Darth Sidious - in stasis without even looking at him, without even a gesture, while he's talking to Ben. Minimal effort.
He's basically unstoppable when he's not holding back.
...which he does a lot, because of fear of going to the darkside. Another thing we have to discuss about skywalker is his judgement, in other words, the judgement that allowed him to NOT KILL caedus in repeated situations where he had the chance. That judgement has to tarnish his rep i think, because of the millions who died AFTER those opportunities. Wouldn't that put their deaths on luke?
Faunus
Originally posted by truejedi
...which he does a lot, because of fear of going to the darkside.And which, logically, he wouldn't do in a versus match scenario.
But yes, he does tend to restrict himself.
No more so than any other Jedi in history. Doing what's "necessary" is often not what the Jedi consider to be "appropriate," even in times of war. Mace Windu's decision to murder Palpatine was the final straw, the last failure of the Order. Luke could've saved lives by slaughtering Jacen, yes, but it would've meant going against all of his beliefs.
Lightsnake
Luke was also trying not to really hurt Lumiya-in Exile, they confirm he's capable of killing her whenever he wants to. He was also distracted by Mara's safety and numerous bystanders and lost a hand right off.
Gideon
Where was it confirmed that he's capable of killing her whenever he wants?
Originally posted by Faunus
As of LotF, while there're probably people who can compete with him on some level in a duel, I don't think anyone really compares in terms of sheer power. He keeps Jacen - more powerful than Darth Vader, so nearly as powerful as Darth Sidious - in stasis without even looking at him, without even a gesture, while he's talking to Ben. Minimal effort.
Define "sheer power", please. His father, for one, is someone who surpasses him in terms of raw power. Or are you referring to unleashed power manifested in a fight? Moreover, Solo is only confirmed to be stronger than Vader by Invincible (compare Solo's duel with Aurra Sing to Vader's). Nothing suggests he is on par with the Emperor.
Again, I wouldn't say that. Skywalker was critically injured by Solo during their duel. He displays superiority in Force aptitude in mastery, but Solo can challenge and severely injure him in a lightsaber contest.
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Gideon
Define "sheer power", please. His father, for one, is someone who surpasses him in terms of raw power. Or are you referring to unleashed power manifested in a fight? Moreover, Solo is only confirmed to be stronger than Vader by Invincible (compare Solo's duel with Aurra Sing to Vader's). Nothing suggests he is on par with the Emperor.
Did Vader have to face similar circumstances as Jacen did during his duel with Sing?
Gideon
Originally posted by Elite Hunter
Did Vader have to face similar circumstances as Jacen did during his duel with Sing?
What circumstances? She attacked Vader with the intent to kill, Vader toyed with her, unarmed, and then finally floored her with a Force push and kept here there.
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Gideon
What circumstances? She attacked Vader with the intent to kill, Vader toyed with her, unarmed, and then finally floored her with a Force push and kept here there.
Jacen kept getting distracted because Allana kept getting in the way since she was Sing's target for assassination.
Gideon
Originally posted by Elite Hunter
Jacen kept getting distracted because Allana kept getting in the way since she was Sing's target for assassination.
I don't recall her being in the way the entire time. And, as I recall, Sing attempted to deal with Jacen first so that she would then be unopposed to kill Allana. Vader owned her while toying with her.
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Gideon
I don't recall her being in the way the entire time. And, as I recall, Sing attempted to deal with Jacen first so that she would then be unopposed to kill Allana. Vader owned her while toying with her.
I haven't read it a while so I'll check but what book did Vader face Sing in? Was it in the book that just came out?
Faunus
Define "sheer power", please. His father, for one, is someone who surpasses him in terms of raw power.As Anakin, yeah, when he couldn't even overpower Obi-Wan. As Vader, we know his limits.
And by sheer power, I mean his overall or acquired power. Simply put, what he's capable of using in a combat scenario. Call it what you want.
There are only two books between Inferno, when Luke duels Solo, and Invincible, when the whole thing finally ends. I highly doubt that Jacen grows in power all that much in such a short span of time, but fine, let's say he's weaker than Vader.
We know Vader's power to be, by word of George Lucas, 80% of what Sidious has as of the OT. Jacen, as of Invincible, is more powerful than Vader. Ergo, he has greater than 80% of the Emperor's raw power. Luke, with laughable ease, was capable of locking Jacen in stasis without exerting himself. Even assuming Jacen nearly doubled in applicable power, that's a mighty impressive feat considering the complete lack of effort, and means that perhaps with difficulty, he should be capable of doing the same to Vader and Palpatine, although the latter individual's vast Force-mastery should prevent such humiliation.
And I never said Jacen was on par with the Emperor in anything; I merely noted that he approached him in raw power, which it is apparent he does.
--
In the next instant, Caedus found himself flying across the cabin toward his observation bubble. Luke had not gestured, had not flinched, had not even shifted his gaze; he had simply grabbed Caedus in the Force and hurled him five meters into his chair.
"Don't lie." Luke started across the cabin. "I'm getting tired of it."
Caedus sprang out of the chair... or attempted to. Instead, he found himself struggling against an invisible weight. He felt as if he were accelerating to lightspeed with a faulty inertial compensator.
"Luke, you've gone mad." Caedus reached for the controls on the arm of his chair and discovered he couldn't even do that much. "You can't do this. I know you're having trouble dealing with Mara's death, but..."
"This has nothing to do with Mara, "Luke said. "And you're lucky it doesn't. If she were here-if she had known what you were using Ben for-there'd be pieces of you scattered along the entire length of the Hydian Way."
The irony of the statement was far from lost on Caedus, but he was too astonished-and too frightened-to take any pleasure in it. While it was true that Luke had taken him by surprise, it was equally true that he had done so with no visible effort-and that he was continuing to hold him with no apparent exertion.
Keenly aware that all that stood between him and a quick death was Luke Skywalker's much-strained sense of decency, Caedus let a little of his very real fear seep into the Force, just enough to seem properly alarmed.
--
Note: I was wrong about him talking to Ben. I didn't remember the sequence correctly, and believed it occurred just before the big duel.
--
"Luke, "Caedus called. "Aren't you forgetting something?"
Luke stopped at the door and looked back, the rage in his face now softening to what looked like remorse. "You're right. I should warn you that you'll have to crush the Confederation without StealthXs. The Jedi can support you no longer."
"What?" Caedus was so shocked that he tried to rise- and found himself as unable to move as before. "You can't desert now. We can end this war!"
"We could destroy the Confederation fleets and kill a lot of rebels, "Luke admitted. "But I don't think you can end this war, Jacen. I don't think you even know what it's about."
"That's absurd." Caedus did not understand how a man who had been fighting wars for forty years could be so foolish. "After their fleets are destroyed, Corellia and Both-awui will have to accept our terms, and once they've surrendered, the rest of the Confederation will have no choice but to come racing to rejoin the Alliance."
Luke shook his head and reached for the touch pad beside the door. "There's always a choice, Jacen."
"And if you go through with this one, you'll regret it." Caedus could not understand why Luke wanted to desert him just when they were on the brink of saving the Alliance, but he did know how to prevent it. "Have you forgotten the academy?"
The door opened. Instead of stepping through, Luke faced Caedus and spoke in a very calm voice. "I'm sure you're not threatening the younglings."
He pointed at the base of Jacen's meditation chair and made a tapping motion with his finger. The pedestal gave a loud whumpf, and the seat dropped a quarter meter.
"Because you really don't want to see me angry." Luke made the tapping motion again. The pedestal emitted a metallic shriek, and the seat dropped another quarter meter. "And I think you're smart enough to know that."
Luke tapped a last time, and the pedestal collapsed with a low loud crump, depositing Caedus on the floor with his feet sticking out in front of him like a child.
"But if you want to try me, go ahead and make that threat."
Luke lowered his hand, and the weight vanished from Caedus's chest. He could have leapt up to attack-had he been that foolish-but Sith were not slaves to their emotions. Avenging his humiliation could wait until after he had saved the Alliance.
Here's a list of every wound suffered by Skywalker in the duel:
1) Roundhouse-kick to the chest, which hits his damaged lungs (from Lumiya) hard.
2) Jacen lashes him into the tendrils the first time. He cuts out almost immediately.
3) Jacen punches him in the ribs, in the same spot as before. Again, the "barely healed" wound from his duel with Lumiya increases the magnitude of the injury.
4) Jacen kicks Luke in the leg, causing "something" to "pop."
5) Jacen drops a steel fixture on Luke's head, knocking him to the ground and breaking his nose.
6) Luke takes another kick to the knee.
7) Jacen tries to strange Luke with another tendril.
So that's two strikes that are only severe because of Luke's prior injuries, and two resulting from Jacen's use of traps that he'd already set up. That leaves three "fair" hits, including the use of the environment in the form of the steel fixture, which is fine.
Now, Jacen:
1) Luke grazes Jacen's kidney with his saber, but Jacen feeds on the pain to make him stronger.
2) Luke hits Jacen with an elbow-smash to the temple that drops him to his knees.
3) Luke knees Jacen in the chin, and hears teeth crack.
4) Luke kicks Jacen in the stomach, lifting him a meter off the deck.
5) Jacen blocks a strike from Luke that packs so much force it drives Jacen's own lightsaber into his shoulder.
6) Luke slashes Jacen across the head, leaving a "palm-sized" hole that reveals bone.
7) Luke hits Jacen in the eye.
8) Luke feints an attack, then Force-pushes Jacen into a tendril-draped rack hard enough that he thinks he broke it.
9) Luke is about to kill him, Ben stops him, Jacen drops the fixture on Luke's head and tries to run away.
10) Luke catches up to Jacen, elbows him in the face, and a bone shatters.
11) Luke elbows Luke in the ribs ("like hitting a permacrete wall"
then uses the momentum and the Force to throw himself and Jacen into a wall, with Jacen's skull hitting first.
12) Luke elbows Jacen in the face again.
13) Luke hits Jacen in the same spot with a palm-heel to get distance, and then Ben stabs Jacen.
End fight at that point. Jacen gets seven hits on Luke - two that only mattered because of Luke's still barely-healed wounds, two that he managed because of his tendril things. It was fighting smart, so obviously I won't hold it against him. But Luke had thirteen solid saber/strike hits on Jacen in their duel. As demonstrated, he could've simply ruined him with the Force, but his "battle rage," as Ben called it - plus PIS - clouded his mind. It took both of Ben's interventions, the first where he asks to kill Jacen himself, and the second where he stabs the man, for Luke to calm down and think.
Luke is firmly superior to Jacen in saber combat - he cannot lose to him.
Faunus
Originally posted by Gideon
I don't recall her being in the way the entire time. And, as I recall, Sing attempted to deal with Jacen first so that she would then be unopposed to kill Allana. Vader owned her while toying with her. I might have only read a segment of the fight, but Sing and Solo didn't even really duel. She threw a grenade at Allana, he called it back and threw it away, and then she tackled him to the ground. He had just gotten his lightsaber out, and then he Force-pushed her into a wall, with her disarming as she went. He was just about to kill her with lightning when he hesitated on account of Allana. Shortly afterward, he was about to kill Sing with her own weapon, but again, Allana's presence made him wary, so he hesitated. And then, in the dumbest thing I've ever read, Allana injects Sing with something and knocks her out.
Seriously.
Lightsnake
Originally posted by Gideon
Where was it confirmed that he's capable of killing her whenever he wants?
Define "sheer power", please. His father, for one, is someone who surpasses him in terms of raw power. Or are you referring to unleashed power manifested in a fight? Moreover, Solo is only confirmed to be stronger than Vader by Invincible (compare Solo's duel with Aurra Sing to Vader's). Nothing suggests he is on par with the Emperor.
Again, I wouldn't say that. Skywalker was critically injured by Solo during their duel. He displays superiority in Force aptitude in mastery, but Solo can challenge and severely injure him in a lightsaber contest.
Exile. The two talk and Lumiya says Luke could have killed her whenever he wants.
backed up by Sacrifice when Luke utterly wrecks her and takes her head off
xxxpoppunker182
Originally posted by Faunus
He never displays the power he's capable of wielding up until that point - I highly doubt that in the span of one book he goes from merely extraordinary to one of the greatest of all time.
i agree completely but take in mind that the LOTF authors made jacen more powerful just by having him give himself his sith name.
Gideon
I'm going to have to take a look at the exact statement, LS, unless you can provide it. As far as his defeat of Lumiya is concerned, let it be known that she expressed a desire to die and solely engaged Luke to pin the blame on Mara's death on herself, so as to spare Jacen. Nothing suggests she was fighting her hardest (though I'm aware she could never defeat Luke). He moved her across the cliff like a battering ram, I believe, were the exact words used.
As far as his immobilization of Caedus is concerned, Faunus, the novel itself states that Luke "took him by surprise". While I grant you that his maintaining of that telekinetic stranglehold heavily implies dominance, the statement that he was "taken by surprise" also implies that Jacen could have fought it.
Lightsnake
Nothing indicates Lumiya held back at their final battle. Luke simply goes with intent to kill and kill quickly, something he's never, ever done with Lumiya before. Lumiya simply knew he'd kill her and there wasn't any escape.
As for Exile, I don't own the book, or do I have it at hand, but as I know: Lumiya and Luke speak, Lumiya tells him he could have killed her at any time, and Luke says he could and he'll hear her out.
That Luke destroyed her decades ago and Lumiya hasn't indicated she's improved at all, this speaks volumes.
And if Caedus could have fought it, he likely would have rather than leave himself to the mercy of Luke Skywalker's 'much strained' sense of decency.
Gideon
Originally posted by Lightsnake
Nothing indicates Lumiya held back at their final battle.
She readily admitted to Jacen Solo that she was looking forward to her death and only confronted Skywalker to assume the blame for Mara's death.
You're correct in the former statement, incorrect in the latter.
I do own the book and I'll be checking the scene in particular later. As I recall, she stopped fighting and gave him the opportunity to kill her, not that she was outclassed and said "LOLZ YOU CAN OWN ME" to which Skywalker agrees.
Because infamous Dark Jedi with secret agendas allow their abilities to decline?
I didn't say that Caedus could have fought it off. I said that he might of, had he been prepared. Skywalker "took him by surprise" and that is the end of it.
truejedi
Originally posted by Gideon
.
Again, I wouldn't say that. Skywalker was critically injured by Solo during their duel. He displays superiority in Force aptitude in mastery, but Solo can challenge and severely injure him in a lightsaber contest.
I have the novel for that duel, and Caedus's own thoughts make it clear that he was severly and utterly beaten before ben ever stepped in. something along the lines of "luke had taken everything caedus had thrown at him, and just kept coming. He had given it his very best shot, and he had been beaten" thats not the exact quote. I'll post the quote of that fight later tonight. If i'm lucky, i can pull it up from another thread i typed it into a long time ago. but that's if i'm lucky!
Faunus
Originally posted by Lightsnake
As for Exile, I don't own the book, or do I have it at hand, but as I know: Lumiya and Luke speak, Lumiya tells him he could have killed her at any time, and Luke says he could and he'll hear her out.If this is the part in Exile where they both lower their weapons and extend their hands to each other, no such thing occurs. Luke looks away at one point and Lumiya notes that she could have killed him at that moment, but doesn't because she's trying to prove that she doesn't hate him. Luke doesn't even sense hostility from her - only sadness and calm.
Lt. Valerian
So, Caedus is ranked where, then? Top 3, 5?
Faunus
In what? Combat ability?
I'd put several people over him. Luke, Palpatine, Yoda, and Bane for sure, and Mace, Kyp Durron, and Exar Kun are distinct possibilities, the latter two only on account of their prodigious ability with the Force.
However, certain ancient Sith should definitely be looked at. Freedon Nadd, for one, was said to have learned under the then seven-hundred year-old Naga Sadow for a time before presumably killing him - so his knowledge base and experience would outstrip Exar Kun's one year with Sadow's notes.
"Freedon Nadd had been a Jedi who turned to the dark side as the apprentice of Naga Sadow, the former ruler of the ancient Sith Empire. Sadow's power had been so great, it had allowed him to survive for six centuries, fueled by the energies of the dark side. As his apprentice, Nadd had absorbed all his knowledge and teachings, transferring them into the Holocron before murdering Sadow and taking his place."
Darth Bane also noted that despite having the formidable build and stature of a waaior, his body looked like it had been ravaged by the power that he wielded.
"Though Nadd had been human, his avatar was the image of a man who had succumbed to the physical corruption that sometimes affected those who delved too deeply into the power of the dark side. His skin was pallid, the flesh withered and sunken, and his eyes were glowing yellow orbs devoid of iris or pupil. Despite this, he still appeared as a formidable warrior: broad-shouldered, clad in heavy battle armor and the helm that had doubled as his crown when he had proclaimed himself king over the nearby world of Onderon."
Even in death, apparently, the dark side clung to his remains and formed a sort of point of concentration around which things simply died.
"Even the plants and trees bordering the clearing were stunted and deformed, corrupted by the dark side power that clung to the remains of the great Sith Master in death."
So really, I think we should be as impressed with Nadd as we are with Kun, if not moreso, although that's a topic for another time. Naga Sadow himself is also a person of interest here, and appears to be quite powerful himself.
truejedi
this is caedus reflecting on his fight with luke. Inferno, pg. 266:
"Luke had beaten him. Luke had just kept coming despite his injuries. He had inflicted more damage on Caedus than he had suffereed himself, and he had even escaped the garrote before ben struck. In fact, it was probably that attack that had saved Caedus's life. Nothing else could have shocked Luke out of his battle rage--only the sight of Ben slipping so far to the dark side." It was a memory that both frightened Caedus and burned his pride, but it was one that he would have to contemplate at length."
Caedus knew that he didn't really give luke a run for his money, that it was a losing fight all along. You also can't say he was taken by surprise. I mean, right up until luke attacked, ben was sitting there telling caedus that luke was coming to attack him. I mean, caedus WAS warned, not Luke's fault he was still as surprised as he was.
Captain REX
This sounds interesting indeed, but I feel that I shall merely observe.
Lt. Valerian
Yes, I meant where did he rank overall.
Hmm... In terms of what, would you put Yoda, Luke, Palpatine, etc. above Caedus? Obviously Luke is above, I don't need any explanation for that.
Gideon
The Ancient Sith definitely need to be looked at.
Faunus
Well, what's been decided on Luke? I don't really understand where this ends and the next effort begins.
Also, I'm gonna pass on Palpatine. I'm a little sick of hearing of him, but I'll help out with Vader and whoever comes after, preferably the ancient Sith.
truejedi
well, we've established a base of power for luke (the very powerful base) but a hiarchy is really all about comparing someone with someone else (bubble sorting, is a>b? the replace a with b, is b>c? and so on) All we have accomplished so far, is that luke IS powerful. how powerful in terms of ranking? we need to look at others to decide that. how about after each successive discussion, we rank the characters we have discussed so far, and make sure a consensus is reached?
xxxpoppunker182
i dunno we went from how luke during his fight to shimirra in TUF was him not holding back any more to gideon saying
"Again, I wouldn't say that. Skywalker was critically injured by Solo during their duel. He displays superiority in Force aptitude in mastery, but Solo can challenge and severely injure him in a lightsaber contest."
and from there we went staright into jacen and lukes encounters with each other in LOTF along with luke and lumiyas battles in LOTF.
@truejedi that sounds good i agree
truejedi
Originally posted by Gideon
I didn't say that Caedus could have fought it off. I said that he might of, had he been prepared. Skywalker "took him by surprise" and that is the end of it.
the type of attack and luke's ability to use it on him took him by surprise, yes, but Caedus was expecting Luke, felt him coming from floors away, and half believed he was about to fight the duel against Luke he had been expecting for quite some time. He even sat at his desk in order to use his traps if necessary. He was as ready as anyone is EVER going to be in a fight.
Faunus
Originally posted by Gideon
I didn't say that Caedus could have fought it off. I said that he might of, had he been prepared. Skywalker "took him by surprise" and that is the end of it.Well then, that logic takes all credit away from Sidious frying just about everyone; you think Yoda, Mace, Starkiller, the three dark acolytes, Luke, and the two Jedi he destroyed just before getting shot by Han were all expecting burst of Force-lightning to come and do bad things to them? That's right, you agree that they were all surprised. Does that take away from Palpatine's feats on any level? No. And see, unlike Yoda or Mace, Caedus had never displayed Force-ability remotely near where it would need to be to fend off an assault from his respective "pwner."
Plus, there's this little gem which truejedi reminded me of:
"Caedus was glad to see Luke's lightsaber still hanging from its belt clip, but he took the precaution of slipping toward his desk, where he would have access to a dozen weapons and traps he had prepared in anticipation of just such a confrontation."
He was ready. He was waiting. Just like Yoda was when he walked in and confronted Palpatine. Just like those three Jedi Masters were when Palpatine jumped up and owned the shit out of them.
The fact that Jacen was "surprised" means absolutely nothing here, and is not at all valid reasoning to suggest he may have somehow been able to defend against the Force-grip.
truejedi
Originally posted by Faunus
Well then, that logic takes all credit away from Sidious frying just about everyone; you think Yoda, Mace, Starkiller, the three dark acolytes, Luke, and the two Jedi he destroyed just before getting shot by Han were all expecting burst of Force-lightning to come and do bad things to them? That's right, you agree that they were all surprised. Does that take away from Palpatine's feats on any level? No. And see, unlike Yoda or Mace, Caedus had never displayed Force-ability remotely near where it would need to be to fend off an assault from his respective "pwner."
Plus, there's this little gem which truejedi reminded me of:
"Caedus was glad to see Luke's lightsaber still hanging from its belt clip, but he took the precaution of slipping toward his desk, where he would have access to a dozen weapons and traps he had prepared in anticipation of just such a confrontation."
He was ready. He was waiting. Just like Yoda was when he walked in and confronted Palpatine. Just like those three Jedi Masters were when Palpatine jumped up and owned the shit out of them.
The fact that Jacen was "surprised" means absolutely nothing here, and is not at all valid reasoning to suggest he may have somehow been able to defend against the Force-grip.
i'm thinking the quote referring to Caedus's surprise was referring to his surprise that luke had been able to do that to him, NOT surprise that had been attacked.
and while we're quoting, i really like this one from the page after faunus's quote above: Luke has just released Jacen, we get this:
"Moving very slowly so his uncle would not misinterpret his actions as an attack, Caedus stood"
Caedus knew who his daddy was, that's for sure.
xxxpoppunker182
how as any of this relevant to how powerful NJO luke is?
Tangible God
Originally posted by xxxpoppunker182
how as any of this relevant to how powerful NJO luke is? LoTF Luke. And his fight with Caedus helps to establish Caedus' rank as well as Luke's. He was one of his most powerful opponents.
Lightsnake
hmmm...what say we start on the Ancient Sith a bit? Faunus, any preferences?
DarkSerpent
Marka Ragnos (personal fav.) Start with him.
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
Well then, that logic takes all credit away from Sidious frying just about everyone; you think Yoda, Mace, Starkiller, the three dark acolytes, Luke, and the two Jedi he destroyed just before getting shot by Han were all expecting burst of Force-lightning to come and do bad things to them? That's right, you agree that they were all surprised.
You are indulging yourself in kotor3- and Enyalus-class logic, Faunus. The event surrounding Palpatine's murder of the Sith acolytes is comparable; the rest are not. Starkiller, Windu, and those two Jedi you mentioned were in combat stance and expecting a fight. Starkiller rushed Palpatine; Windu's saber was ignited and he was armed with the knowledge regarding Palpatine's Sith allegiance, as were the two Jedi in Dark Empire.
LOL. The idea that the gap between Windu and Sidious is less than Caedus and Skywalker is ridiculous. Windu isn't comparable to Vastor, who in turn, isn't comparable to Vader, who in turn, isn't comparable to Sidious.
Getting prepared for a fight as a precaution and being prepared for a fight are two entirely different things.
If Caedus was standing in combat stance and blade ignited, I will concede. Otherwise, you have no ground. That the omniscient narrator makes special reference that he was "caught by surprise" indicates that Caedus wasn't expecting an attack at all.
True, though your syllogism and comparisons are lackluster. Remember, this isn't a debate, this is a discussion to see where Skywalker stands.
Gideon
Originally posted by Faunus
I'm more interest in Vader now, but I'm okay with Luke - Palpatine - Vader.
This is the order we're going in. The Ancient Sith can be addressed after Vader.
So, what are our conclusions on NJO Luke and LotF Luke? Does anyone else agree that for most of New Jedi Order, Luke is not the OMGWTFPWNZORS of Force users.
xxxpoppunker182
i'm not to sure
Faunus i think makes a good point when he said that luke didn't go from being merely extraordinary to uber in the span of one book(TUF) but rather he just stopped holding back.
but gideon you too i think are right when u said "And the purpose of this thread is to find the reason why."
also i don't have the source off the top of my head but i do believe that GL stated somewhere that Luke went on to become what his father should have. or something like that and I could be wrong. but i will try and find a source for that if anyone else has herd this before you are more than welcome to help me out on finding the source.
If this is right then couldn't that be a reason why luke is so good?
Pwned61
Originally posted by Gideon
This is the order we're going in. The Ancient Sith can be addressed after Vader.
So, what are our conclusions on NJO Luke and LotF Luke? Does anyone else agree that for most of New Jedi Order, Luke is not the OMGWTFPWNZORS of Force users.
I don't want to stick my nose where is doesn't belong in this topic, but you can't rule out lukes uberness throughout the NJO. I mean, we clearly have him operating at the high level he does in TUF, and at lesser level before hand. However, if we cannot account for his lower showings in the context of the SW universe, then we simply have to accept that he was capable of similar feats beforehand regardless of the inconsistency.
Elite Hunter
I think NJO Luke(at his NJO peak) is still more powerful then anyone to have come before him but I don't think he could handle 2 characters like as ROTS Sidious and oh let's say Kun at once like some may think.
Gideon
You can always join, Pwned. I have to go, but I'll be back as soon as I can to address Elite Hunter and Pwned.
Lt. Valerian
Yes, of course, nobody ever said Luke was not superior, Gideon was merely pointing out that, by NJO, he was not the best of the best by a very large margin, I think.
Elite Hunter
Originally posted by Lt. Valerian
Yes, of course, nobody ever said Luke was not superior, Gideon was merely pointing out that, by NJO, he was not the best of the best by a very large margin, I think.
QFT
Gideon
Precisely, Lieutenant.
But as per the purpose of this thread, we are to address discrepencies and put them into proper perspective as well. Consider that post-Dark Empire, he was quite handily defeated by the spirit of Exar Kun. In Jedi Knight II, he was defeated by Desann in single combat. Just prior to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker stumbled upon the remnants of the ill-fated Outbound Flight, where he came across a slightly modified Trade Federation-era droideka. Despite having assistance from the considerably talented Emperor's Hand, the droid succeeded in challenging him. How is this so? These discrepencies cannot be ignored.
Galen Marek was capable of obliterating massive amounts of Imperial personnel and heavy weaponry rather casually, numerous times throughout the Force Unleashed and used the Force to redirect a falling Star Destroyer, which is -- to me -- far more impressive than Skywalker's dealing with Shimrra's elite (with assistance). Yet look at what happened to him: he was initially outmatched by General Kota (a Jedi capable of casually resisting Force lightning and emitting telekinesis on a level that it all but destroyed a massive orbital factory), nearly killed by Shaak Ti, and nearly killed by Darth Vader (who in turn was capable of casually stopping General Kota). Is he impressive? Certainly. Depending on what source you look at, he was capable of tanking a pissed off Palpatine's Force lightning for a given amount of time and managed to make the Emperor "cry out in lascivious pain" or telekinetically hurl him into the ceiling of his observation dome and then electrocuting him, though it seemed obvious that the Emperor wasn't attacking to his greatest extent, nothing suggests he was allowing Marek to embarrass him like that. Still, despite his impressive feats, he's hardly invulerable and was handily defeated by individuals such as Kota and Shaak Ti who were nowhere near his equal in Force mastery or raw potency. Hell, the comic depicts one of the Emperor's Shadow Guard giving him an assbeating. And this is an individual who, in some ways, emits feats in excess of Skywalker as of NJO.
The point is that Skywalker is not infallible. In Legacy of the Force, despite the ferocity and great strength he demonstrates in Dark Nest and The Unifying Force, he was nearly destroyed by Lumiya, who (while being an immeasurably cunning fighter) is certainly, by no means, a rival of Luke in terms of Force use. How would he do against someone like Darth Bane, who is cunning and armed with orbalisks? Or, heaven help him, Palpatine, who not only has a greater mastery of the Force than Skywalker but is lightyears more cunning and brilliant (it was he who trained Lumiya).
Lt. Valerian
Hmm... This is certainly something to look at, and you make an excellent point.
I suppose it means that having the highest Force Potential in all of Star Wars does not mean he is skilled, cunning, or even experienced enough, to use this incredible power wisely, and most importantly, efficiently during battle(s).
truejedi
Originally posted by Gideon
Precisely, Lieutenant.
But as per the purpose of this thread, we are to address discrepencies and put them into proper perspective as well. Consider that post-Dark Empire, he was quite handily defeated by the spirit of Exar Kun. In Jedi Knight II, he was defeated by Desann in single combat. Just prior to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker stumbled upon the remnants of the ill-fated Outbound Flight, where he came across a slightly modified Trade Federation-era droideka. Despite having assistance from the considerably talented Emperor's Hand, the droid succeeded in challenging him. How is this so? These discrepencies cannot be ignored.
Galen Marek was capable of obliterating massive amounts of Imperial personnel and heavy weaponry rather casually, numerous times throughout the Force Unleashed and used the Force to redirect a falling Star Destroyer, which is -- to me -- far more impressive than Skywalker's dealing with Shimrra's elite (with assistance). Yet look at what happened to him: he was initially outmatched by General Kota (a Jedi capable of casually resisting Force lightning and emitting telekinesis on a level that it all but destroyed a massive orbital factory), nearly killed by Shaak Ti, and nearly killed by Darth Vader (who in turn was capable of casually stopping General Kota). Is he impressive? Certainly. Depending on what source you look at, he was capable of tanking a pissed off Palpatine's Force lightning for a given amount of time and managed to make the Emperor "cry out in lascivious pain" or telekinetically hurl him into the ceiling of his observation dome and then electrocuting him, though it seemed obvious that the Emperor wasn't attacking to his greatest extent, nothing suggests he was allowing Marek to embarrass him like that. Still, despite his impressive feats, he's hardly invulerable and was handily defeated by individuals such as Kota and Shaak Ti who were nowhere near his equal in Force mastery or raw potency. Hell, the comic depicts one of the Emperor's Shadow Guard giving him an assbeating. And this is an individual who, in some ways, emits feats in excess of Skywalker as of NJO.
The point is that Skywalker is not infallible. In Legacy of the Force, despite the ferocity and great strength he demonstrates in Dark Nest and The Unifying Force, he was nearly destroyed by Lumiya, who (while being an immeasurably cunning fighter) is certainly, by no means, a rival of Luke in terms of Force use. How would he do against someone like Darth Bane, who is cunning and armed with orbalisks? Or, heaven help him, Palpatine, who not only has a greater mastery of the Force than Skywalker but is lightyears more cunning and brilliant (it was he who trained Lumiya).
i'll agree with that: i think it applies to every character tho: falls into the whole football: anyone can beat anyone on any given sunday thing. Giants over the pats, w/e, Just because someone is better, certainly does not mean they will win in a duel. This kinda contradicts our entire vs. forum, in which we assume if something should happen, it will, but that's just not the case. TPM is proof of this with obi-wan and kenobi.
Tangible God
Originally posted by Gideon
Precisely, Lieutenant.
But as per the purpose of this thread, we are to address discrepencies and put them into proper perspective as well. Consider that post-Dark Empire, he was quite handily defeated by the spirit of Exar Kun. In Jedi Knight II, he was defeated by Desann in single combat. Just prior to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker stumbled upon the remnants of the ill-fated Outbound Flight, where he came across a slightly modified Trade Federation-era droideka. Despite having assistance from the considerably talented Emperor's Hand, the droid succeeded in challenging him. How is this so? These discrepencies cannot be ignored. Just to say it: I played through Jedi Knight II recently and... well I don't know how canon the in-game, randomly generated cutscene is, but Luke wasn't defeated by Desann, more just... pushed a few feet.
Gideon
It was my understanding that Desann buried him under a pile of rubble. Was I wrong?
Precisely, Lieutenant. Luke Skywalker has a nearly peerless potential. As Lightsnake has pointed out, Skywalker has demonstrated an incredibly high learning rate that allows him to master techniques based on sheer intuition; he is not a scholar such as the Emperor or Yoda. His power comes from his natural affinity to understand and control the Force. But does that make him the end all? Hardly.
His knowledge is hardly comparable to say, one of the greater Jedi or Sith, as his knowledge base was purged or deliberately misinformed by the machinations of the Empire. He will never rival someone like Yoda or the Galactic Emperor in terms of cogent, cohesive mastery.
Skywalker's intellect and wisdom are also considerable. But is he an incredibly cunning foe such as Lumiya or Mara Jade? No. Is he a brilliant tactition like Grand Admiral Thrawn or General Grievous? No. Is he a master strategist or genius like Palpatine? No. Is he a trained killer or an exemplary fighter? No. He's a master swordsman, but he's no killer. Lumiya legitimately brought him to the brink of defeat because she is simply the better fighter, though hardly the stronger Force user.
Not to mention that, since ESB, he has demonstrated a lack of confidence that resulted in his failure to lift the X-wing. He suffered further by the nightmares on Byss, the death of his beloved wife, the estrangement of his son, the treachery of his nephew, his murder of an ex-lover. I think that is the source of his flaws.
Tangible God
Originally posted by Gideon
It was my understanding that Desann buried him under a pile of rubble. Was I wrong? He pushed him and lightsabered a platform. Distracted Luke long enough to escape. Luke jumped out from behind and stood perfectly straight, shaking his head as the Doomgiver departed.
Schwarzenegger
I found out something interesting, it seems like certain parts of the TFU novel and comic contradict one another, vader pwning kota is for one, while paratus is missing from the comic.
And the most interesting part was that the novel states that marek blew himself up which destroyed part of the death star, while the comic showed that palpatines lightning became too large and too intense for marek to fully absorb/block and then a massive explosion occurs.
Gideon
I went back through the Unifying Force and, from pages 264 to 267, Jacen Solo and Luke Skywalker converse about the duality of the Force. Skywalker all but confirms my two theories:
a.) Luke Skywalker remains haunted from his brief tenure as an agent of the Sith.
-- The Unifying Force, page 264
b.) Skywalker's insecurities prevent him from "unleashing" himself.
-- The Unifying Force, page 265
I feel that we have almost concluded Skywalker's relative power and, unless anything else can be offered, we may begin our final conclusions.
Gideon
Originally posted by Schwarzenegger
I found out something interesting, it seems like certain parts of the TFU novel and comic contradict one another, vader pwning kota is for one, while paratus is missing from the comic.
Their absence isn't necessarily a contradiction
Again, no contradiction. Nothing suggests that it was just Palpatine's Force lightning. We simply don't have Marek's internal narrative to say what he decided to do, since the story is being narrated by a spectator in the comic.
truejedi
Luke's relative power cannot truly be looked at until we discuss the others tho.. who is he being compared to? surely the same conclusion that we came to with luke , that he COULD lose battles, would also be true of every other character He still is the favorite, comparable only to the very top tier fighters (DE sidious, yoda, etc). Just as he COULD lose, it is also, by our own discussion, most likely that he would not, in any stand up, knock down fight. was it that you were trying to disprove that luke could, without the slightest effort destroy all others? because that was never believed in the first place anyway, i don't think.
xxxpoppunker182
Originally posted by Gideon
Precisely, Lieutenant.
But as per the purpose of this thread, we are to address discrepencies and put them into proper perspective as well. Consider that post-Dark Empire, he was quite handily defeated by the spirit of Exar Kun. In Jedi Knight II, he was defeated by Desann in single combat. Just prior to the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker stumbled upon the remnants of the ill-fated Outbound Flight, where he came across a slightly modified Trade Federation-era droideka. Despite having assistance from the considerably talented Emperor's Hand, the droid succeeded in challenging him. How is this so? These discrepencies cannot be ignored.
Galen Marek was capable of obliterating massive amounts of Imperial personnel and heavy weaponry rather casually, numerous times throughout the Force Unleashed and used the Force to redirect a falling Star Destroyer, which is -- to me -- far more impressive than Skywalker's dealing with Shimrra's elite (with assistance). Yet look at what happened to him: he was initially outmatched by General Kota (a Jedi capable of casually resisting Force lightning and emitting telekinesis on a level that it all but destroyed a massive orbital factory), nearly killed by Shaak Ti, and nearly killed by Darth Vader (who in turn was capable of casually stopping General Kota). Is he impressive? Certainly. Depending on what source you look at, he was capable of tanking a pissed off Palpatine's Force lightning for a given amount of time and managed to make the Emperor "cry out in lascivious pain" or telekinetically hurl him into the ceiling of his observation dome and then electrocuting him, though it seemed obvious that the Emperor wasn't attacking to his greatest extent, nothing suggests he was allowing Marek to embarrass him like that. Still, despite his impressive feats, he's hardly invulerable and was handily defeated by individuals such as Kota and Shaak Ti who were nowhere near his equal in Force mastery or raw potency. Hell, the comic depicts one of the Emperor's Shadow Guard giving him an assbeating. And this is an individual who, in some ways, emits feats in excess of Skywalker as of NJO.
The point is that Skywalker is not infallible. In Legacy of the Force, despite the ferocity and great strength he demonstrates in Dark Nest and The Unifying Force, he was nearly destroyed by Lumiya, who (while being an immeasurably cunning fighter) is certainly, by no means, a rival of Luke in terms of Force use. How would he do against someone like Darth Bane, who is cunning and armed with orbalisks? Or, heaven help him, Palpatine, who not only has a greater mastery of the Force than Skywalker but is lightyears more cunning and brilliant (it was he who trained Lumiya).
well I dunno about you but Luke has Always Since ROTJ tried bringing people back to the light side. he did with vader.
when he fights dessan i'm quite sure that he wasn't trying to kill him but bring him back to the LS thats why after he gets out of the rubble he looks down and shakes his head not in defeat but in disappointment that he couldn't bring him back. But i guess you could say that he was beaten but luke was surely not TRYING to kill desann.
the same goes for lumiya in his encounters with her in LOTF. If I remember correctly as soon as luke decided to just kill lumiya the fight sequence wasn't very long like what 2 or 3 pages long? the fight in universe must have been like 5 minutes tops. I will go re read it though my memory may be scewed.
as for the droideka and the force unleashed I think those are author mistakes i mean ya what they right is considered cannon but they are human and i think that just because one author makes it really hard for luke to beat a droid and the another makes him uber like in TUF doesn't necessarily mean that they painted an accurate account of how powerful luke is.
it's our job as the reader to use discretion and deductive reasoning to figure out which authors portray an accurate character be it luke, han, vader, or anyone. That's why GL says there are 3 worlds his world the EU and what happens in our(the fans) minds.
Tangible God
Originally posted by xxxpoppunker182
well I dunno about you but Luke has Always Since ROTJ tried bringing people back to the light side. he did with vader.
when he fights dessan i'm quite sure that he wasn't trying to kill him but bring him back to the LS thats why after he gets out of the rubble he looks down and shakes his head not in defeat but in disappointment that he couldn't bring him back.
as for the droideka and the force unleashed I think those are author mistakes i mean ya what they right is considered cannon but they are human and i think that just because one author makes it really hard for luke to beat a droid and the another makes him uber like in TUF doesn't necessarily mean that they painted an accurate account of how powerful luke is.
it's our job as the reader to use discretion and deductive reasoning to figure out which authors portray an accurate character be it luke, han, vader, or anyone. That's why GL says there are 3 worlds his world the EU and what happens in our(the fans) minds. Lol, in that case, the Ewoks were exterminated in the Endor Holocaust.
Wasn't the droideka incident before the Vong Invasion? If so, you can attribute Luke's power increase to his experience in the war.
xxxpoppunker182
i think i didn't communicated what i wanted to the right way.
this might help.
if an author depicts luke, lets say 1 year after LOTF, as someone who can hardly defeat a YVH droid does that mean that he actually has a hard time beating a YVH droid? or is it possible that the author screwed up?
I think we as the readers full well know that luke could just destroy the YVH droid with ease. especially by LOTF.
Tangible God
You'd have to question the validity of the rest of the author's writing in that case, casting his control over canon into question.
Tangible God
Like for me I've yet to study Publius' teachings.
Gideon
Edited. Never mind, I just read his arguments regarding Sion.
Gideon
Originally posted by truejedi
Luke's relative power cannot truly be looked at until we discuss the others tho.. who is he being compared to? surely the same conclusion that we came to with luke , that he COULD lose battles, would also be true of every other character He still is the favorite, comparable only to the very top tier fighters (DE sidious, yoda, etc). Just as he COULD lose, it is also, by our own discussion, most likely that he would not, in any stand up, knock down fight. was it that you were trying to disprove that luke could, without the slightest effort destroy all others? because that was never believed in the first place anyway, i don't think.
What I am doing is trying to lift the delusion that the likes of Skywalker and the Emperor are completely without peer. Both of them have certain things in common regarding combat prowess and Force aptitude. The difference is that Skywalker's state of power has fluctuated ever since Dark Empire. In Jedi Academy, he was defeated by the efforts of the spirit of Exar Kun and Kyp Durron; he was defeated by Desann in Jedi Knight: Jedi Outcast; he was nearly defeated by a droideka in Survivor's Quest; he was nearly killed by Lord Nyax in Rebel Dream; he was nearly killed by Lumiya in Tempest; he was injured by Jacen Solo in Inferno. The man is hardly infallible.
The purpose of this thread is to give an accurate depiction of characters and their abilities without aggrandizement or assumptions. If there is an inconsistency concerning a character, I'd like to try to find a reason for it. And in TUF, Luke confirms that he fears drawing on most of his raw power due to his insecurities regarding the dark side of the Force. Hence why his moments as a veritable force of nature are few and far between.
His battle with Lumiya is also one of interest. Though it is apparent that she is neither his equal in Force strength or in skills with a lightsaber, he was outmatched by her in their duel. Why? Because she is a trained fighter and killer, her skills as a combatant far exceed his own. Hence why Mara Jade was also able to dominate someone more powerful than herself: Jacen Solo, though she his equal in neither category. Training and mentality helps, and as it stands, Lumiya and Mara Jade are dangerous even to the likes of Luke and Jacen because they are simply better trained and far more intelligent fighters.
Edit: Though I'd like to make it clear that I'm not suggesting that they compare in terms of swordsmanship or Force strength. They don't. They're not close.
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